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LOGAN, THE MINGO 



LOGAN THE MINGO 



BY 



FRANKLIN B. SAWVEL, Ph.D. 

Member of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania 




BOSTON 

RICHARD G. BADGER 

THE GORHAM PRESS 



Copyright, 19 21, by Richard G. Badger 



All Rights Reserved 



Made in the United States of America 



The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 



APR -! 1991 
SG' A614016 



FOREWORD 

The purpose of this narrative is to recount the 
events and achievements that make up the life 
story of Logan, the Mingo, in the order of their 
occurrence with a fullness and completeness not 
hitherto attempted. 

The author has used material from many rec- 
ords and writers freely without acknowledging 
the source in the text; but adds a bibliography of 
Logan literature and list of works consulted and 
drawn from which he hopes wall be a due and 
adequate acknowledgement to each. The text 
itself more than suggests the original source of 
some of the subject matter. 

The North American Indians did not have a 
written language and left no literature to preserve 
their myths and ideals by recounting deeds of 
valor and chivalry of brave men and the devotion 
of beautiful maidens; and no poetry to immortal- 
ize their Wise Men and Chiefs. Their history 
was written by their enemies and conquerors, 
peoples of different nationalities and of different 
culture and social ideals. 

5 



6 Foreword 

It is not surprising then that so few names have 
come down to us and that our inheritance from 
the lives of their capable and renowned leaders, 
whether King, Chief or Sachem, in the struggle 
for existence and for the attainment of what satis- 
fied them as a worthy national and race ambition, 
is so meager and so lightly appreciated. 

The name Mingo, commonly applied to Logan, 
is of Algonquin origin and means "stealthy or 
treacherous." It was given to the Iroquois by the 
Delawares and affiliated tribes and later became 
the special name of the band of that nation, mostly 
Senecas, that left the common home in New York 
and migrated westward to the Ohio country. 
When he moved from Pennsylvania, he cast his 
fortunes with these wanderers; and though some 
times called by his Indian name, Tah-gah-jute, he 
was no longer called Shikellamy, but became 
known to history as Logan, the Mingo. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I Logan's Forebears and Early Life . 13 
II Logan is Chosen Deputy and Elected 

Sachem 18 

III He Meets Great Men in Council . . 22 

IV A Period of Unrest and Distrust . . 27 
V Five Years Among the Mountains . . 36 

VI Some Causes of Revenge and Cruelty 43 

VII Logan Moves to the Ohio Country . 52 

VIII The Murder of Logan's Family . . 59 

IX Values Placed on Human Life ... 63 

X Personal Traits 6^ 

XI Logan Takes Revenge 69 

XII Dunmore's War 78 

XIII Logan's Famous Speech 82 

XIV Years of Uncertainty 87 

XV Favors the British Cause — A Confes- 
sion 98 

XVI The End 100 

XVII Tributes — in Song and Story . . . 102 

Bibliography of Logan Literature . 109 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
Logan, the Mingo Frontispiece ^ 



FACING 
PAGE 



Logan Spring, Rudsville, Pennsylvania . . 40 ^ 

Logan Elm 60 *^ 

Logan Monument, Auburn, New York . , 100 >/ 



LOGAN THE MINGO 



LOGAN THE MINGO 

CHAPTER I 

LOGAN'S FOREBEARS AND EARLY LIFE 

Logan was human. His conduct shows what 
Cooper calls the diversity or great antithesis of 
character of the North American Indian. The 
worst and best qualities of human beings were 
joined in him. He had the gross instincts, cun- 
ning and treachery, thirst for blood and revenge 
of the Red Man and the sense of justice and 
honor, love of virtue and peace and the reverence 
for Deity of the White Man. There was some- 
thing more noble in this son of the forest than his 
primitive exterior and inborn savagery. He was 
first of all a human being and then an Indian with 
a vision. 

His father was born in Montreal of Canadian 
French parents and had been carried away by 
the Indians when a child and brought up by the 
Oneidas, a tribe of the Iroquois. The English 
called him Shikellamy and the Moravian mission- 
aries spelled it Shikellemus.^ When he grew to 

* Indian names are often spelled in different ways and the 
following are found in old records as variations: — Shikellimy, 

13 



14 Logan the Mingo 

manhood he married an Indian girl of the Cayugas 
and lived for a time at the Indian village of Osco 
or Wasco, now Auburn, New York. Whether 
Shikellamy wore a tiny bow-and-arrow strung to 
his neck on his hunting trips before our hero 
saw the light as was the custom among the In- 
dians when a boy child was wished for, tradition 
has not told us. But to Shikellamy and his squaw 
was born a son about the year seventeen hundred 
twenty-five and they named him Tah-gah-jute, 
which means, "his eyelashes stick out and above as 
if looking through or over something — hence 
spying." When the child was five years old the 
parents moved to Shamokin where Shikellamy was 
made Chief of the Indians around the place which 
was also known as Fort Augusta. It is now Sun- 
bury, Pennsylvania. 

Tah-gah-jute was the second, one tradition says 
the oldest, of four brothers and he had three 
sisters. His father had been baptized in infancy 
at Montreal into the Catholic faith. He was 
converted to the Protestant religion by the preach- 
ing of the Moravian missionaries at Shamokin and 
the eagle-eyed boy was baptized by the same 
Moravian Brethren and re-named Logan by the 

Shakallamy, Shecalamy, Shekallamy, Shickalamy, Shikallamy, 
Shikelimo, ShikelHma, Shikellemus, Shikellimus, Shikellimy, 
Shykelimy, Shekellamy, Shick Calamy, Sicalamous, Swatana, 
Swataney, etc. 



LogavLS Forebears and Early Life 15 

fond and ambitious father after James Logan, 
Secretary of the Province of Pennsylvania under 
William Penn; for it was held to be a great honor 
for an Indian to answer to the name of a white 
man. So it came about that mixed, brave red 
blood flowed in Logan's veins and honor crowned 
his youthful brow, prophecies of the life-long and 
eloquent advocate of peace between his race and 
the white man he was to become and the ruthless, 
savage foe when wronged beyond human endur- 
ance. 

We know little of the boy's life till he arrives 
at the age of heroic deeds and tests of his innate 
and keen sense of honor and duty. His after life 
shows that he had mastered the arts of warfare, 
of hunting and dressing skins and the nobler arts 
of diplomacy and peace-making. He often went 
on hunting trips to the mountain regions of west- 
ern Pennsylvania and to Virginia and learned the 
lay of the country so well that he became a 
trusted guide and messenger. He became expert 
with the bow-and-arrow and could throw the 
deadly tomahawk with surer aim than his com- 
panions. His greatest skill was in the use of the 
flint-lock gun they got from the French and Eng- 
lish, the most deadly weapon in war and in the 
chase in those days, and no buck or doe escaped 
his viligant eye and unerring aim. 



1 6 Logan the Mingo 

He, too, married a Cayuga maid who bore him 
several children of whose after life nothing is 
known with certainty. She died of fever at 
Shamokin in October, 1747, the same year he was 
appointed Counsellor for the Cayugas. The fol- 
lowing legend with its touch of romance survived 
among the Cayugas and is worthy to be repeated* 
as it probably refers to his second marriage. 
Ontonegea was a famous Chief and a close friend 
of Logan's father. A beautiful child was born 
to him at Osco. Her eyes were piercing, her 
face like the smiling sun, her person comely as a 
flower and her manners gentle. From wigwam to 
wigwam she tript like a fairy scattering brightness 
and joy everywhere and when she glided through 
the maize-fields she brought golden ears and 
plenty. Ontonegea took her with him on a jour- 
ney to Fort Orange where an officer in King 
George's service on account of her remarkable 
beauty and gentleness gave her an English name, 
Alvaretta, which she kept ever afterwards. Shikel- 
lamy did not forget his friendship for Alvaretta's 
father and when Ontonegea died he adopted the 
beautiful girl. Logan had become deeply attached 
to her in childhood and because his father before 
he died had requested him to marry Alvaretta, 
"the marriage ceremony was performed in 1749 
by Bishop Zeisberger, a pious missionary who ad- 



Logan's Forebears and Early Life 17 

ministered the consolation of the gospel to his 
dying parent." 

At all events Logan married a second wife, a 
Shawneese, who survived him but bore him no 
children. His father had arisen to positions of 
trust and honor with the Governor of the province 
and among the settlers and traders. When he 
went out on official business for the government 
Logan accompanied him. At the age of twenty- 
three he was sent alone as ambassador in his 
father's place. That was the way — the school — 
in which the young men were trained in diplomacy 
and public speaking and Logan's after life shows 
how well and richly he improved the opportunities 
he had. Frequently after this during his father's 
declining strength the son was sent on important 
embassies to act for him. Shikellamy was a friend 
of the English and admonished his sons to remain 
friends of the white man. He died the year fol- 
lowing the death of Logan's first wife and was 
buried at Shamokin. 



CHAPTER II 

LOGAN IS CHOSEN DEPUTY AND 
ELECTED SACHEM 

His death did not make Logan his successor. 
By an Indian custom it fell to the mother's tribe 
and to the oldest son if accounted worthy. His 
older brother, Taghneghtoris, also called John 
Shikellamy, had lost an eye before the father's 
death and the Council of Chiefs rejected him as 
their leader on that account and as the successor 
of his father. The next spring, April twenty- 
second, seventeen hundred forty-nine, Conrad 
Weiser appointed Logan, on account of his ability, 
honesty and prominence, in the name of the Gov- 
ernor to succeed his father and sent a string of 
wampum to the Onondagas to tell them of the 
appointment. He accepted the office which was 
duly confirmed by the Governor of the Province 
of Pennsylvania and by the Council of Chiefs. 

He inherited from his father almost unlimited 
jurisdiction over the tribes north to the Great 
Confederacy of the Iroquois, west as far as the 

i8 



Chosen Deputy and Elected Sachem 19 

crest of the Alleghenies and south, and lived at a 
time when two powerful European nations and a 
third weaker In numbers but with advantages in 
her favor were savagely contending for the rich 
prize of a new continent. It would perhaps be 
too broad to say that he was destined to hold the 
balance of power; but he was the sentry on the 
battle line between barbarism and civilization. 
How long the conflict between the Indian and the 
Caucasian would have lasted had it not been for 
his mediation, his sterling honesty and eloquent, 
persistent counsel for peace between the races, can 
not be set down by moons or seasons; nor what 
the final outcome of the death grapple In which 
Indian, French and Briton were locked In the 
north and east and the Spaniard and Indian in the 
south and west would have been. He chose to 
play the role of friend of the white man and 
peace-maker and to be a wise Sachem meant more 
to him and to history than to be a great warrior. 
He was a young man for so Important a posi- 
tion In those days but he had the quiet dignity 
and refinement of sentiment and feeling that dis- 
tinguish the lofty minded and had won the con- 
fidence of all. It was not long till the General 
Council of the Onondagas raised him to Sachem 
of the Shamokin Indians and elected him Sachem 
of the Cayugas as well. There had been many 



20 Logan the Mingo 

Sachems of the Iroquois covering a long period 
of many generations but only Logan became really 
famous in history. Yet of few other heroes of 
his race is the history which has been preserved 
less complete. 

In May of the next year after his appointment 
he and his oldest brother took part in a confer- 
ence at Pennsboro to transact important business 
for the Six Nations. After due deliberation their 
plan was approved and an agreement was reached 
that the government would remove the whites who 
had settled on the lands belonging to his people 
along the Juniata River. Events were moving 
rapidly and Logan showed himself worthy of the 
authority and confidence the government and his 
kinsmen had placed in him. The provocations 
were sometimes great and the situation galling. 
When he made complaints to the government the 
settlers or squatters were sometimes removed but 
would return as soon as the officers of the law 
were gone. 

Fortunately during the next two years events 
of only minor importance occurred that affected 
his office and the discharge of his duties, for the 
French and English were chiefly concerned with 
the growing uneasiness and strife among them- 
selves. He made his home at Shamokin. His 
house was always open and he continued the hos- 



Chosen Deputy and Elected Sachem 21 

pitality for which his father's house had been so 
widely known; visitors were frequent and always 
welcome. 

He made formal complaint to the government 
In 1753 that the traders were bringing scarcely 
anything to the town but rum and flour. Though 
the protest was repeated and such complaints were 
frequently made they were not heeded by the 
traders who were more interested in the revenue 
they got from the sale of rum than they were in 
the welfare of the people and improvement of the 
town. 



CHAPTER III 

HE MEETS GREAT MEN IN COUNCIL 

Early in the spring of 1754 Logan was sent 
with a message to the Six Nations and to invite 
them to meet at Albany in the summer with the 
agents of the Proprietaries for the purpose of 
purchasing some land from them. Such negotia- 
tions were usually called malcing a treaty. The 
preliminary arrangements for the meeting were 
all made by him to the satisfaction of both the 
Six Nations and the Proprietaries and a great 
council was held at Albany during the summer. 
The Province of Pennsylvania was represented by 
Governor John Penn, Benjamin Franklin, Richard 
Peters and Isaac Norris, and Logan was the 
speaker for the Shamokins and Cayugas. 

A treaty was agreed upon and duly executed. 
After the council had ended he sent a message to 
Brother Onas, as he called the Governor, in 
December informing the latter of his appoint- 
ment at the treaty on June fourteenth as the agent 
of the Six Nations to care for their lands at 

22 



He Meets Great Men in Council 23 

Wyoming and on the west branch of the Susque- 
hanna. At another meeting of the Council with 
the same distinguished men of the Province pres- 
ent, July sixth, for the design to purchase all the 
lands from the Susquehanna on the east to the 
western boundary of William Penn's province, 
which was then the Ohio line, the agents of the 
government were told that Shamokin and Wyom- 
ing would not be sold. They reserved these for 
their own people as hunting grounds and Logan 
was appointed to take care of them. He was 
not to allow any whites to settle on either of the 
two reserved tracts or on land contiguous to them 
on the Susquehanna. The negotiations were 
finished and the treaty made by which that large 
territory was purchased from the Indians for the 
insignificant sum of four hundred pounds sterling. 
And on that memorable July sixth Logan signed 
the deed or made his cross as one of the Sachems 
of the Cayugas. The Governor invited him by 
letter to be present the next summer when the 
surveyors would run the line as they called it that 
was to separate the reserved tracts or hunting 
grounds from the settlements, and afterwards 
called him "our good friend Shikellamy." During 
this period of his life he was still known as 
Shikellamy, especially when he acted in an official 
capacity or signed documents for the tribes or the 



24 Logan the Mingo 

province by making his mark in the form of a 
cross or letter X. 

But even at that early day treaties were some- 
times regarded as mere scraps of paper. The 
treaty was broken by the avaricious whites from 
farther east soon after the Great Council ended 
at Albany. People, chiefly from Connecticut, be- 
gan to settle on the Wyoming lands in the early 
autumn and before the year ended Logan sent 
a message to the Governor of Pennsylvania and 
said, "When the great treaty was held at Albany 
this summer, the Six Nations in their Council 
appointed me to the care of the lands at Wyoming 
and north of the western branch of the Susque- 
hanna which they keep for the use of the Indians 
who are daily flocking there from all parts and 
acquainted the Commission of Pennsylvania in the 
presence of all people that I was their agent: 
that they put those lands into my hands; and that 
no white man should come and settle there; and 
ordered me, if they did, to complain to Pennsyl- 
vania; and to get them punished and turned off. 
In view of this appointment I complain to Penn- 
sylvania that some foreigners and strangers who 
live on the other side of New York and have 
nothing to do in these parts are coming like 
flocks of birds to disturb me and settle those 
lands ; and I am told they have bought those lands 



He Meets Great Men in Council 25 

of the Six Nations since I left Albany and that 
I have nothing further to do with them. I desire 
you to send to those people not to come; and if 
you do not prevent it, I shall be obliged to com- 
plain to the Six Nations." Thus it happened that 
the treaty was broken by the lawless whites before 
they had time to run the line that was to set off 
the two relatively small tracts the Indians had 
reserved. The Governor upheld Logan in his 
protest and promised to punish the offenders in 
the future. 

Conrad Weiser was official interpreter for the 
government. He also carried on some missionary 
work among them and built a log house for Logan 
and his family in September of this year which 
has been called the first log house erected in Sham- 
okin. The town was known as a tough place even 
for those days, Indians, traders and frontiersmen 
alike — "The very seat of the prince of darkness," 
*'The devil's own town." The tribes from the 
north passed through it over the much used War- 
riors Path on their way to the frequent wars with 
the Catawbas in the south and a trail ran through 
it from east to west. A smithy to mend their 
guns and a mission house combined had been put 
up and opened as far back as seventeen hundred 
forty-seven by Bishop Zeisberger with Welser's 
approval and in spite of Logan's protest and 



26 Logan the Mingo 

remonstrances against the sale of rum by the 
traders, fire-water was abundant and drunken 
orgies were of frequent and almost nightly occur- 
rence. 



CHAPTER IV 

A PERIOD OF UNREST AND DISTRUST 

The defeat of the English under General Brad- 
dock by the French and their Indian allies near 
Pittsburgh in July, seventeen-fifty-five, spread dis- 
content among Logan's wards and the Delawares 
east of the mountains and they began to side with 
the French in the north. Conrad Weiser wrote 
in his diary August 28, 1750, that the Onondagas, 
Cayugas and Senecas had turned Frenchmen and 
with them some of the Oneidas. But now the 
unrest became general and could not be allayed 
by Logan. He opposed the plan of leaving Sham- 
okin and was encouraged by the leading Chiefs of 
the Delawares; but he could not persuade them to 
remain. In October a number of Indians were 
killed at Penn's Creek. His older brother and 
Chief Scarrooyady and" in fact all the friendly 
Chiefs of the Delawares and Shawneese joined 
with Logan In counseling the young warriors to 
remain quiet. At the same time they urged the 
Governor to adopt speedy and energetic plans for 

27 



28 Logan the Mingo 

defending the colony and waiting Indians. But 
his white friends engaged in a parley over taxes 
till it was too late to profit by the foresight and 
wise counsel offered; and failure to heed the warn- 
ing and advice promptly resulted in great detri- 
ment to the community. 

Logan remained behind but was mistreated by 
the fearful and over zealous settlers and also by 
some British officers to whom he had a right to 
look for protection. Indian scalps were being 
brought in and threats to kill him were made. 
Finally he was persuaded to join the discontented 
tribesmen in the north. What was more disquiet- 
ing to him was the attitude of the Delawares who 
decided In a council held at Shamokin that they 
would go to the French settlement in the north and 
when he hesitated to join them, they told him if 
he did not go they would look upon him as their 
enemy; and to be branded as an enemy usually 
meant torture or death. Late in the autumn he 
left Shamokin with his kindred and went up the 
north-east branch of the Susquehanna to Cayuga 
Lake to live among people who were hostile to the 
English. 

When he got to the Delaware village In the 
north he agreed to go on the war-path against the 
English to avenge the many scalps that had been 
taken and the threats against his own life before 



A Period of Unrest and Distrust 29 

he moved. But some friendly Indian messengers 
met him and persuaded him to remain friendly 
to the whites and he did not join them. 

It soon became known that he had gone and 
both the Governor of the Province and Conrad 
Welser sent messengers after him with belts of 
wampum to Invite him to return. He received 
them kindly and the next year taking his wife with 
him he made a journey to Bethlehem where he 
met an old friend, the missionary David Zeis- 
berger. He told Zelsberger that he moved north 
because the Irish people at McKees Fort near 
Harrlsburg treated him badly and threatened to 
kill him and that he left his guns and all he had, 
even his clothes. After three days, on the fourth 
of September, he resumed his journey and went 
on to Philadelphia to see Governor Hamilton. 
He told him the story of his wrongs and that he 
did not want to run away but the whites had 
abused him and threatened to kill him and he 
was forced to go. He showed the belt of wampum 
the messengers had brought him to Cayuga Lake 
with the invitation to return and said he took it 
as a reproof for going away the fall before to 
live among enemies In a wilderness where they 
were likely to perish for want of provision. He 
repeated the Invitation of the Governor to come 
back to Shamokin or to his own house or some- 



30 Logan the Mingo 

place in the neighborhood where he could keep a 
watch over them and supply them with necessary- 
provisions, as they were like little children who 
did not know what was for their own good. He 
told him further that they had repented and were 
sorry they had run away when they should have 
gone to his house at Tulpehocken for protection 
instead; that they were deceived by the Delawares 
and lost themselves and that his brother was also 
led astray; but "we have agreed to come back to 
Shamokin or to your house as soon as we can 
with safety and some other friendly Indians have 
promised to come with us." 

The Governor tried to compose him and per- 
suade him to remain at Philadelphia or go to his 
old home at Shamokin where a strong fort was 
being built that would protect him. But Logan 
feared for the safety of his kindred he had left 
in the north and hastened back to join them. 

During the next two years or more the French 
with their Indian allies were having partial suc- 
cesses in the Champlain country. But Quebec was 
taken by the British in 1759 and the situation was 
completely changed. Logan remained in his cabin 
through it all and took no part in the conflict. He 
did not change the course he had so consistently 
followed unless it was to become a more ardent 
advocate of peace. That he was dissatisfied and 



A Period of Unrest and Distrust 31 

restless In the north he showed by holding fre- 
quent communications with his old friends In the 
Province and by his words and conduct. After 
an Interrupted absence of five years and In answer 
to repeated promises of the protection of the gov- 
ernment from which he had fled, he came back 
to Shamokin early In February of seventeen-slxty, 
pleading that he had been ''carried away," and 
was restored to his former trust. He sent a mes- 
sage to Conrad Welser ten days before he re- 
turned Informing him when he expected to arrive 
and that a Great Council of the Chiefs was soon 
to be held and that he was Invited to attend It. 
He wished to confer with Welser before he went 
to the council as he knew that the Governor 
wanted a road cut from the settlements to Shamo- 
kin, "That the Indians might be supplied with 
goods at Shamokin at all times of the year by a 
nearer, safer and more commodious way than the 
dangerous and roundabout way of the Susque- 
hanna which Is sometimes Impassable In summer 
and all the winter admits of no transportation of 
goods or provisions." Welser was sick at the 
time and not able to go, but sent his son to meet 
him at Shamokin. At the meeting Logan urged 
the Importance of presenting the road matter to 
the Chiefs at their assembly and proved his friend- 
ship and loyalty by offering to bring the matter to 



32 Logan the Mingo 

the attention of the Onondaga council about to be 
held. His services were gladly accepted. He was 
given the message and authority and promised to 
use his persuasion and influence to have the road 
plan approved. It will be noticed that he prom- 
ised to urge by persuasion, which shows a deep- 
seated Indian trait and a prominent trait in 
Logan's character. They would listen to argu- 
ments and harangues and to many speeches for 
days in succession, but to force never without 
resistance. They resented it, and any attempt to 
force an issue was sure to bring defeat or end in 
war, for they scorned coercion. 

Conrad Weiser and David Zeisberger, the mis- 
sionary, had been frequent visitors at his home 
and were his warm friends and trusted coun- 
sellors. After the defeat of the French at Quebec 
the duties of the office of Deputy were changed 
and much more simple than they had been and 
his services as the "true correspondent" of Penn- 
sylvania and agent to negotiate with the Six 
Nations were less required than formerly. The 
settlements were growing stronger in influence and 
population. In addition the end of the war be- 
tween the French and English was in sight. But 
his concern for the welfare and behavior of his 
own people as their Sachem did not grow less and 



A Period of Unrest and Distrust 2'i 

his efforts to bring about peace and good will 
did not wane or fail him. 

The last official acts and service as Deputy for 
the Province of Pennsylvania of which a record 
was made and preserved is his attendance at the 
Great Conference at Lancaster in August, seven- 
teen hundred sixty-two. It is said that his two 
only brothers then living and several Chiefs of 
the Cayugas and Senecas went with him on this 
occasion. A treaty was made between the gov- 
ernment and both the northern and western tribes 
whose terms were satisfactory to both parties, the 
Indians and the English, and hopes for peace be- 
tween them were once more entertained. From 
this meeting he went to Philadelphia on an im- 
portant mission which he presented in person to 
Governor Hamilton. He besought the Governor 
to remove the profane and profiteering agent at 
Shamokin and appealed to him for better prices 
to be paid to the Indians for their merchandise 
which consisted chiefly of dressed skins. The 
appeal was courteously received and he was prom- 
ised a prompt, due and proper consideration of 
his request. 

It was June of the year following, after he re- 
turned to Shamokin, the scene of his youth and 
early manhood, that he promised to report any 



34 Logan the Mingo 

approach of enemies he might scent or hear of. 
But the town had been despoiled, the buildings 
such as they were mostly torn down, and the near- 
by hunting grounds no longer furnished his 
kindred ample food. His official duties were 
finished and he was now ready to retire and move 
on to better and more secure hunting grounds. 
For sixteen years he had faithfully and ably done 
the duties of his two-fold office. The nature of 
these onerous tasks had made him the arbiter of 
differences of opinion In regard to the material, 
social and moral well-being of the two races. The 
government approved his conduct and highly 
appreciated his services. Superiors In office and 
associates from the Governor down held him in 
high esteem for his candor and impartial dealing 
and often rewarded and commended him for hon- 
esty and ability. Without boast he could say in 
the words of Black Hawk to President i\ndrew 
Jackson spoken more than half a century later, 
"I am a man and you are another." 

The poet Thomas Campbell preserves a beau- 
tiful tradition In the romance of ^'Gertrude of 
Wyoming," that Logan as "Outalissi" rescued a 
child In seventeen hundred sixty-three by unbind- 
ing Its mother from a tree to which she was tied 
by her Indian captors to be tortured and burnt. 
The father, "a captain of the British band," had 



A Period of Unrest and Distrust ^S 

just been killed In a war with the Hurons. When 
loosed the mother swooned away, praying that 
her orphan boy might be taken to her kindred. 
After a long and dangerous journey the mag- 
nanimous Chief, 

. . . the eagle of my tribe, have rushed 
With the lorn dove. . . . 

reached Wyoming on the Susquehanna with the 
little child and delivered him to her kindred In 
safety. 



CHAPTER V 

FIVE YEARS AMONG THE MOUNTAINS 

The year seventeen hundred sixty-five brought 
a change and rest to Logan. Early in the sum- 
mer he moved to Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, 
and built himself a cabin near Reedsville and hard 
by a limestone spring which is known as Logan's 
Spring to the present day. The site he chose for 
his new home was only a mile or two above a 
charming mountain gorge called the Narrows in 
Jack's Mountain. Here he lived in the midst of 
untamed forest wilds for the next five years in 
peace and quiet and made an honest living by 
hunting and selling dressed skins, mostly deer 
skins. His conduct and devotion to industry and 
domestic life during this brief period show his 
high sense of responsibility and justice in civil 
life to advantage and much to his credit. 

The religion, philosophy and social polity of 
the Indian at his best contained only the first prin- 
ciples of civilization, but these were of a high 
order. Their God was the potency of all Nature 

36 



Five Years Among the Mountains 37 

symbolized by the Great Spirit, Manitou. And 
their primitive mind and concrete imagination 
found Deity in every created object and thing and 
everywhere — in themselves, in sun, moon and 
stars; in trees and flowers, forest and stream; in 
wind, rain and storm; in cloud and sky and in all 
animal life. But Logan could add to innate rev- 
erence his early Moravian Christian training 
which in his most trying moments and tragic 
deeds never entirely forsook him. He was master 
of the dialects of the various and many tribes and 
besides could speak both French and English and 
was well equipped for the position he filled of 
mediator between the Red Man and the pioneer. 
Within a year after he settled at Reedsvllle 
three Indians stopped one Sunday morning at the 
home of a white man in Raccoon valley which 
was miles away from Kishacoquillas valley where 
Logan had his cabin. They set up their guns out- 
side of the house and went in. It was noticed by 
the family that one of the visitors could speak 
English. After several hours of talking and jab- 
bering among themselves and apparently amusing 
themselves, one of the boys of the family got a 
Bible and read two or three chapters from the 
Book of Judges about Sampson and the Philis- 
tines. The father observed that the one who 
could speak English paid close attention to what 



38 Logan the Mingo 

was read and remarked what a great benefit it 
would be to the Indians if they could read. "Oh, 
a great many Indians on the Mohawk River can 
read the book that speaks of God," was the reply. 
They were never in a hurry and the three or four 
hours were strenuous ones to their host. They 
left peaceably and several days later the family 
learned that the one who could speak English was 
Logan. What one says and does reveal his real 
character; in fact, they are the outward signs of 
what is within. But the recorded words of Logan 
are not as many as one would wish for, too few 
indeed, because he could not write them down 
himself. Yet accounts of some of his most kindly 
acts and most illuminating utterances have been 
preserved with a curious care and exactness. 
Judged by these he stands alone among the re- 
nowned heroes of his race; for while Nature made 
many Indians, Chiefs and Sachems, she made but 
one Logan. 

The following incidents are connected with the 
next three years of his life while he lived in the 
forest and mountain wilds of Mifflin County and 
were printed in the Pittsburgh Daily American of 
March 21, 1842, in a letter written by Hon. R. 
P. Maclay of the state senate of Pennsylvania to 
George Darsie of the same body. They reveal 



Five Years Among the Mountains 39 

his Inner human nature and sense of honor and 
a high standard of justice and right. 

Dear Sir: — 

Allow me to correct a few inaccuracies as to 
place and names in the anecdote of Logan, the 
celebrated Mingo Chief, as published in the Pitts- 
burgh Daily Amej'ican of March seventeenth, tq 
which you call my attention. The person sur- 
prised at the spring, now called Big Spring, and 
about four miles west of Logan's Spring, was 
William Brown — the first actual settler in Kisha- 
coquillas valley and one of the associate judges of 
Mifflin County from its organization till his death 
at the age of ninety-one or two, and not Samuel 
Maclay as stated by Dr. Hildreth. I will give you 
the anecdote as I heard it related by Judge Brown 
himself while on a visit to my brother who then 
owned and occupied the Big Spring farm, four 
miles west of Reedsville: — 

"The first time I ever saw the spring," said the 
old gentleman, "my brother, James Reed, and my- 
self had wandered out of the valley in search of 
land and finding it very good we were looking for 
a spring. About a mile from this we started a 
Bear and separated to get a shot at him. I was 
traveling along looking about on the rising ground 
for the Bear when I came suddenly on the spring; 
and being dry and more rejoiced to find so fine a 
spring than to have killed a dozen Bears I set 
my rifle against a bush and rushed down the bank 
and laid down to drink. Upon putting my head 
down I saw reflected in the water on the opposite 



40 Logan the Mingo 

side the shadow of a tall Indian. I sprang to my 
rifle, when the Indian gave a yell whether for 
peace or war I was not just sufficiently master 
of my faculties to determine; but upon my seizing 
my rifle and facing him he knocked up the pan of 
his gun, threw out the priming and extended his 
open palm toward me in token of friendship. 
After putting down our guns we again met at the 
spring and shook hands. This was Logan, the 
best specimen of humanity I ever met with, either 
white or red. He could speak a little English and 
told me there was another white hunter a little 
way down the stream and offered to guide me to 
his camp. There I first met your father. 

"We visited Logan at his camp at Logan's 
Spring and your father and he shot at a mark for 
a dollar a shot. Logan lost four or five rounds 
and acknowledged himself beaten. When we were 
about to leave him he went into his hut and 
brought out as many deer-skins as he had lost 
dollars and handed them to Mr. Maclay, who 
refused to take them alleging that we had been 
his guests and did not come to rob him — ^that the 
shooting had been only a trial of skill and the bet 
merely nominal. Logan drew himself up with 
great dignity and said: 'Me bet to make you 
shoot your best — me gentleman and me take your 
dollar if me beat.' So he was obliged to take the 
skins or affront a friend whose sense of honor 
would not permit him to receive even a horn of 
powder in return. 

*'The next year," said the old gentleman, "I 
brought my wife up and camped under a big wal- 



Five Years Among the Mountains 41 

nut tree on the bank of Tea Creek until I had 
built a cabin near where the mill now stands and 
have lived in the valley ever since. Poor Logan 
(and the big tears coursed each other down his 
cheeks) soon went to the Allegheny and I never 
saw him again." 

The above narrative was signed by R. P. 
Maclay and the incidents related were confirmed 
by a daughter of Judge Brown, Mrs. Norris, who 
lived near the site of Logan's Spring. She is our 
authority also for the following incident. Mrs. 
Judge Brown, her mother, happened to speak in 
Logan's presence one day of her little girl's need 
of a pair of shoes. A day or two after hearing 
this Logan asked Mrs. Brown one morning if he 
might take her little two-year-old girl, a younger 
sister of Mrs. Norris, to his cabin to make her a 
pair of moccasins. The mother was surprised and 
alarmed by such a request, but could not refuse 
to let him take her. He kept the child all day 
and brought her back safely at sunset with a pair 
of new deerskin moccasins on her tiny feet. On 
another occasion it is said he won the confidence of 
a little boy while the father was away from home 
and took him to his cabin, but returned with the 
child unharmed before nightfall clad in a pair of 
bright new moccasins. 

We meet Logan again at Standing Stone, now 



42 Logan tht Mingo 

Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, where he carved on a 
giant oak tree a full-length figure of an Indian 
brandishing a tomahawk. It was probably done 
while making a friendly visit at Standing Stone 
camp, as it was not far away from Reedsville, or 
while on that melancholy march with his race to- 
wards the setting sun. 



CHAPTER VI 

SOME CAUSES OF REVENGE AND 
CRUELTY 

The conflict between the Indian and the Cau- 
casian had been going on for more than two cen- 
turies before Logan was born and had increased 
in wanton savagery from generation to genera- 
tion. The Red Men's bitter hatred for the 
Pale-face and thirst for his blood and scalp were 
consistent with their view and measure of the in- 
justice and wrongs they had suffered and were 
still meeting in the loss of their ancient hunting 
grounds and the desecration of the burial places 
of their fathers and kindred. They believed these 
had been given to them by the Great Spirit for 
a home and for a sacred resting place of their 
dead forever. In the unequal conflict they had 
the moral advantage of fighting, torturing and 
killing the intruders for a principle while their 
enemies were killing and slaughtering them for 
the sake of plunder. Several centuries that pre- 
ceded the dark period in Logan's life had seen 

43 



44 Logan the Mingo 

bloodshed and savagery, insatiable cupidity and a 
hoggish greed for gold. How unhuman it all 
seems now; while the heartless butchery and 
brazen bad faith too often shown, not to say 
hypocrisy of those who posed as the Indian^s 
friends and protectors, staggers belief. They 
were slain as savages, and what wicked crimes 
have been committed under the disguise of "sav- 
ages" and "heretics." As Victor Hugo would 
say, "They are the brutalities of progress." 

When Christopher Columbus arrived and after 
he mingled with the natives he said, "The Indians 
are not savage, but gentle, gracious, without know- 
ing what evil is, without stealing, without killing." 
Sebastian Cabot, Americus Vespuclus, Ponce de 
Leon, Jean Ribaut, Laudonnler and Menendez — 
all give the same report and testimony that on 
their arrival and first meeting and intercourse with 
the natives they found them kind-hearted and 
peace-loving. And every school boy and girl 
knows well the story of William Penn, whom the 
Indians called "The Red Man's friend." It was 
after the Spaniards, French and English began to 
make slaves of them by force and torture and be- 
gan to kill each other, together with such Indians 
as had become friends of one or the other adven- 
turer or exploring party, that they became sus- 
picious of all strangers and foreigners and became 



Some Causes of Revenge and Cruelty 45 

hostile to them. The French incited them against 
the Spaniards, the English inflamed them against 
the French and the Spaniards led them in battle 
against both of the others. When Menendez, 
"By the Grace of God" ! ! killed Ribaut and three 
hundred fifty French Huguenots of his ship- 
wrecked and helpless companions without mercy 
he also murdered the innocent Indians nearby, 
men, women and children, and burned their village 
with the same savage barbarity. 

The Indians became at once the buffer race in 
the wanton conflicts of the Spanish, French and 
English and were the greatest sufferers from 
every point of view. If it is true that man is not 
a working animal by nature, as psychologists 
assure us, but would rather fight than work, it is 
easy to understand why the Indians disdained 
every attempt to make them the toiling slaves of a 
strange and foreign race whatever the pretext 
offered or hopes held out to them. They had 
then an inborn aversion for the exacting toil that 
civilization imposes as the price of human prog- 
ress and advancement In the arts, industry and 
learning. Yet they could not get along without 
some kind of training suited to their needs. The 
youth who were to become the future brave war- 
riors, Chiefs and Sachems were Instructed by the 
old men and Wise men of the tribes. They were 



46 Logan the Mingo 

taught to make weapons for hunting and how to 
use them and instruments for self-protection and 
defense. Around the camp fires and in the wig- 
wams the story of their once happy past when 
they lived in peace and security was rehearsed to 
them and the wrongs they and their fathers had 
suffered at the hands of their enemies were recited 
and repeated to them over and over again till 
the stories became part of their lives. It is human 
nature, too, to magnify injuries and brood over 
them. So these stories were passed down and on 
from one generation to future generations. 

That the freedom which they valued so much 
was becoming less and less they knew only too 
well. The restraints forced upon them became 
more galling to endure from father to son and 
the hatred for the pale faced Intruder grew deeper 
and more savagely bitter as they saw their braves 
and their women and children falling at the hands 
of foreign foes, saw their villages burned and 
their once broad and undisputed hunting grounds 
taken away from them. 

Among the different tribes the same opinion 
and estimate of the white man prevailed, whether 
held by the Iroquois, Algonquin, Delaware, Shaw- 
neese or the far-away Semlnoles of the south land 
whose verdict was summed up and tersely ex- 
pressed In the phrase, *'Es-ta-had-kee, ho-lo- 



Some Causes of Revenge and Cruelty 47 

wa-gus, lox-ee-o-jus," — "white man no good, lie 
heap too much." It is a sad commentary on the 
practice freely indulged in during those early 
Colonial times that scarcely one of the many 
treaties made with the Indians was fully and faith- 
fully kept and the pledges redeemed, as the 
records of the Indian Bureau at Washington 
show. The same records show also that the 
whites were the delinquents and aggressors oftener 
than the Indians. 

Nor is it less a reproach to the intelligence and 
morality of those who professed to want to help 
them to better modes of living to know and re- 
flect that the language and dialects of the Indians 
had no words of disrespect for their deity, the 
Great Spirit, and contained no words of profanity; 
that drunkenness was not known and that lying, 
cheating and stealing among themselves were rare 
indeed if not unknown when the white man first 
came In contact with them and learned their 
speech. Honor and truthfulness were cardinal 
virtues to them. Many of the snakish vices found 
among them through their later tribal history 
were Imitations and retalliations which they had 
learned by sad experience from their alien associ- 
ates and conquerors and were not original with 
them. 

From the time the explorers came in search of 



48 Logan the Mingo 

treasures and gold and later as the foreigners be- 
gan to plant colonies the conditions were not con- 
ducive to the mutual trust and confidence between 
the races which each professed to be anxious for 
and to be working to bring about. The whites 
soon learned to know the treacherous and re- 
vengeful nature of the Indians and mistrusted 
them. The Indians in turn were jealous of the 
whites and looked upon them as intruders and not 
without ample reasons mistrusted their motives 
for invading their lands. Underneath the short 
periods of outward quiet was the remembrance of 
the past. Whatever else they lacked in mental 
poise and equipment, they had retentive and virile 
memories and did not forget for a day the Injus- 
tice they felt they were the victims of nor the 
wrongs, real or fancied, they had suffered. They 
were treacherous and were becoming more so, but 
not among themselves. 

When the French assumed to be their masters 
they were promised that they would be protected 
against their enemy, the English, and that their 
women and children would be safe and their 
homes and hunting grounds preserved. Then the 
English gained a firm foothold in the east and 
made the same promises and each gave the bewil- 
dered Red Men gifts, guns, ammunition and bar- 
rels of rum to confirm the promises they made and 



So7ne Causes of Revenge and Cruelty 49 

to assure them of the love and good will of the 
Great Father as they called the King of each. 
But the wily Indian was a close observer and was 
clear enough of vision and keen enough in judging 
to suspect that the ulterior purpose was to take 
their lands away from them and destroy the hunt- 
ing grounds on which they depended for food and 
existence. They could not serve two masters and 
deceit and treachery were forced upon them. The 
effect of these conditions was bad and tended to 
debauch them. Chief Custaloga told the British 
officer at Fort Pitt of their distrust and fear when 
he said, "We have, therefore, also to hope that 
what you have said to us upon this head comes 
from your hearts and not with a design to amuse 
or deceive us." 

But what has this to do with the life of Logan, 
the patriot? the reader may ask. It had much to 
do In shaping the course he followed and in both 
molding and testing his character. He could not 
belie his ancestral inheritance nor forget his own 
past. New England and the Immediate east dealt 
more humanely with the benighted savages and 
did not Incur their worst hatred. The Moravian 
Brethren and the Jesuit missionaries gained their 
confidence by treating them with such human kind- 
ness and justice that they became firm and trusted 
friends, learned from them the useful ways of 



50 Logan the Mingo 

peace and industry and lived among them or in 
their own towns under the fostering protection 
and encouragement of their benefactors in peace 
and safety. Other bands like the Six Nations in 
New York and smaller groups in places made 
secure for them by William Penn became gradu- 
ally settled and peaceful. 

But the tribes and remnants of tribes in the 
Ohio country continued to resist the advance of 
the frontiersmen, scorn the encroachments on 
their broad domains and fight for the personal 
liberty of which they were both proud and jealous. 
The ancient moorings were giving away and 
though submission or extinction inevitably awaited 
them they were slow to see the danger and not yet 
willing to accept the fate which had already been 
sealed. They hoped against hope and their spirits 
were still unconquerable. 

It was among these western tribes that Logan 
now decided to cast his fortunes and make his 
home and share their hopes and griefs. He was 
still the wise counselor for peace and hoped 
against all odds that the government which had 
protected him so long and which he had served 
so faithfully would set things right and keep the 
aggressors out of the western country where they 
might again live in peace to themselves. French 
and Spanish interests and influence had largely 



Some Causes of Revenge and Cruelty 51 

disappeared and the conflict was now and con- 
tinued to be between the unsubdued tribes who 
were encouraged by a few mercenary whites on 
the one side, and the frontiersmen and officers of 
the English government on the other. The vital 
issue and alternatives that faced them were 
whether they would yield to the advancing 
civilization which they did not understand and 
become a part of It to advance with It and like- 
wise receive a share of the promised benefits and 
wealth of the new order; or stubbornly choose 
the slavery or extinction that seemed to await 
them. 



CHAPTER VII 

LOGAN MOVES TO THE OHIO COUNTRY 

What purpose Logan had in his mind or what 
influences induced him to abandon the quiet home 
among the mountains near a growing settlement 
of friendly pale-faces who trusted him and appre- 
ciated his dependable honesty and character and 
migrate westward to live among his own restless 
and war-like people where life was less secure, 
was not regarded as a matter of sufficient impor- 
tance to be made an item of record. Was it on 
account of his love of adventure, love of the 
simple life into which he had been born free from 
what must have been to him artificial niceties, 
false modesties and luxuries of the new mode of 
living that were thrusting themselves in his way 
with the added desire for the freedom which un- 
tamed forests and streams offered? Or was he 
impelled by love of his own rugged, roving, 
leisure-loving kinsmen and a lingering hope and 
ambition to save their lands and homes from the 
spoilers by eventually getting a boundary line set 

52 



Logan Moves to the Ohio Country 53 

up that would separate the two races, the red and 
white, for all time to come — a treaty boundary 
that would be respected and faithfully kept by 
both as inviolable? Or was he pushed out by the 
new westward-marching empire? Whatever the 
causes or influences may have been that brought 
him to a decision, he moved to the Allegheny 
River region in 1770. The name Allegheny was 
at that time a rather indefinite term and applied 
to the Ohio as well, for the latter was but a con- 
tinuation of the former. He took his family with 
him and lived for three years at the mouth of 
Beaver Creek. He was visited by the noted 
annalist of the Indian race, Heckewelder, in his 
new home. McClure, the missionary, visited him 
the next year after Heckewelder's visit and found 
him under the influence of rum and painted up as 
a warrior. Heckewelder visited him a second 
time two years after his first visit. He explained 
and lamented the difl'icult if not impossible task 
of holding the young men in check and from mak- 
ing brutish reprisals when under the influence of 
drink. In the midst of new surroundings he was 
also face to face with changed relations and con- 
ditions. It is true the Mingoes, Delawares and 
Shawneese, who now dwelt north of the upper 
Ohio and westward to the Muskingum and Scioto, 
were migrants from his old territorial jurisdic- 



54 Logan the Mingo 

tion in the Susquehanna region south of the lands 
of the Great Iroquoian Confederacy and were not 
entire strangers to him; but the whites were new. 
George Croghan was interpreter and Deputy 
Indian agent for western Pennsylvania and lived 
above Pittsburgh. Conferences were frequently 
held between the agent and officers of the govern- 
ment on the one side and groups of Chiefs chosen 
from the different tribes on the other; — sometimes 
at Croghan's house and other times at Fort Pitt. 
But Logan did not appear among the Chiefs as 
an ambasador. When he retired from the office 
of Deputy on leaving Shamokin it was final and 
he did not re-enter the service. Whether this 
holding himself aloof was voluntary on his part 
or because he was not authorized to be a mediator 
can not be said. His disposition was by nature 
modest and retiring and he did not mingle with 
the Virginians who claimed all the lands in the 
Monongahela and Ohio valleys, as he had associ- 
ated with the leaders of the Province and fron- 
tiersmen east of the mountains. The followers 
of William Penn and his policy were trusted 
friends of the children of the forest; but the Vir- 
ginians with whom he now had to deal were 
different. Protection of life and property and the 
amassing of more acres and more wealth were 
still the chief ends to be attained. Strife prevailed 



Logan Moves to the Ohio Country 55 

rather than friendly concern for the common weal, 
and the relations were not very cordial at this 
time. 

His work as a peace-maker and counsel as the 
friend of the white man were carried on with the 
tribes in their Assemblies and through the Coun- 
cils of Chiefs. He was his own ambassador, and 
had to bargain at longer range and less directly 
and intimately than before. The separation and 
recluse position gave him more range, perhaps, 
and offered greater temptation to indulge the 
fondness for rum he confessed to Heckewelder — 
a weakness which his father abhorred and never 
indulged in himself because he said, "It makes 
white men fools." 

After the war between the French and English 
ended in favor of the latter, the Indians, who had 
been holding the balance of power and had be- 
come vain and conceited over their importance, 
now found themselves slighted and neglected and 
treated as so many wild beasts to be hunted and 
shot down as trophies of superior marksmanship 
or "for sport," as one fully reliable and well- 
informed author puts it. Whites would disguise 
themselves as Indians and thought little more of 
killing Red Men than of killing bears and buffa- 
loes; and the tortures and death inflicted on the 
whites by the Indians were even more hideous and 



£6 Logan the Mingo 

revolting. To such lengths had race hatred 
driven them in Logan's time that mutual distrust 
had become criminal and brutish. The attitude 
and environment were changed and his personal 
influence was less; but he did not give up nor did 
the execrations which were heaped upon his kin- 
dred drive him away from being a friend of the 
white man. 

Logan went to Fort Pitt frequently to trade 
and no doubt visited the savage warrior, Kiasutha, 
at his village located at the mouth of Squaw Run, 
eight miles above on the north bank of the Alle- 
gheny. But no mention Is found In the scanty 
chronicles of those days that he attended councils 
or joined the grim warrior In border raids, though 
their camps were only fifty miles apart, which to 
the fleet-footed Indian with his roving habits 
could not be called distant. He took no interest, 
neither any share, in torturing prisoners, even 
though they happened to fall victims of their own 
cruelty. The traders at Fort Franklin were not 
too far away to get part of his merchandise and 
he was a welcome visitor at Custaloga town up 
the old Trail along French Creek, made famous 
by Washington going over It on his journey to 
Fort le Boeuf and returning In safety. Every 
path and hunter's pass along the Shenango and 
the adjacent hills and valleys felt the soft tread 



Loffan Moves to the Ohio Country 57 

of his cautious feet, while his hunting trips carried 
him far a-field into the Scioto and Miami country. 
Three years after he had pitched his camp at 
Beaver Creek he moved his family farther down 
the river to the mouth of Yellow Creek on the 
north bank of the Ohio, three miles below where 
Wellsville now stands. The town of Mingo Junc- 
tion, twenty miles farther down the river, perpetu- 
ates the name of his tribe and his memory on the 
strength of Logan having been there for how long 
or how short a period no one knows. The student 
of Indian history and biography is hampered by 
the fact that they had no written language of their 
own except pictograph inscriptions, which are 
occasionally found, and the meaning and import 
of these is often uncertain. So they themselves 
left no written records of great events or of the 
prowess of their great men, heroes or heroines, 
told from their own viewpoint of life and its in- 
terests. And by a second important circumstance 
that the Information we have and the records 
which were made at or near the time the events 
occurred are often conflicting and were In the case 
of written accounts made by their common foes, 
chiefly French and English, and colored by the 
personal equation of the self-interest of traders 
and petty ofllicers at a time when the chief concern 
of the invaders of their lands and rights was to 



58 Logan the Mingo 

deprive them of both and drive them out of the 
country or failing In that to exterminate them out- 
right. Volumes have been written by people of a 
different race portraying and emphasizing the 
treachery and savagery of the Indians, but the like 
deeds of those who were confiscating and debauch- 
ing their homes are scantily told, if at all, and 
condoned, justified or dismissed on the question- 
begging plea that they were savages, blood-thirsty 
animals that could talk and nothing besides. 

Brief reports by traders and missionaries of 
the purchase of pelts and dressed skins indicate 
that Logan still followed the pursuit of hunting 
and of peacemaker pleading for justice, and con- 
tending that the Indians were the rightful owners 
of the lands north of the Ohio. He scorned ex- 
tinction. But peace did not encircle his new home 
now at Yellow Creek. Early the next spring 
after his arrival, while some of his men were try- 
ing to capture a horse that was tethered on their 
ground In the neighborhood, two were shot down 
by one Myers, a Virginia land-grabber. The 
camp began to plan revenge, it Is said, and a 
squaw, supposed to have been Logan's sister, gave 
a hint to the band of outlaws to which Myers 
belonged, who were lodged on the south side of 
the river at the time under the commmand of the 
unscrupulous land thief, Daniel Greathouse. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE MURDER OF LOGAN'S FAMILY 

The following day was the thirtieth of April, 
seventeen hundred and seventy-four. It was also 
the day of the brutal murder of Logan's family. 
He was away westward in Ohio on a hunting trip. 
Greathouse invited the Indians of the camp to 
Baker's tavern across the river to be his guests 
for the day. They accepted the invitation, which 
was outwardly friendly and apparently sincere. 
The next day a party from the camp, — one re- 
porter says eight, another nine, a third ten, and 
Heckewelder and Dodridge say twelve — crossed 
the river in their canoes to the south side of the 
Ohio opposite the mouth of Yellow Creek to 
make the friendly visit at Baker's, a rum-seller. 
They left their guns in their tents as it was to be 
a friendly visit. There were at least five men, 
several women and a two-months-old child in the 
party. The mother of the infant was Logan's 
sister. 

When they arrived the whites gave them rum. 
59 



6o Logan the Mingo 

Three of the men drank freely and became beastly 
drunk. The others refused to drink, as it was a 
custom among the Indians for one or more of a 
party to remain sober. The sober Indians, one 
of whom was Logan's brother, were then chal- 
lenged to shoot at a mark, which was a common 
sport or game among them. They all agreed and 
the Indians shot first. As soon as they had 
emptied their guns and were thus without weapons 
or chance to defend themselves they were shot 
down. One woman, the sister of Logan, tried to 
escape by flight, but was also shot down. She 
lived long enough, however, to beg mercy for 
her little babe and told them it was one of their 
kin. Its life was spared on that account. The 
whites had men in the cabin prepared with toma- 
hawks to kill the drunken Indians and they imme- 
diately set upon them till not one was left alive. 
Duvereux Smith, a British officer at Fort Pitt, in 
a letter to Governor Dunmore of Virginia dated 
June tenth, reported that nine Indians were killed 
by Greathouse and his men at Baker's. In the 
party so foully deceived and slaughtered were the 
mother of Logan, his youngest living brother, 
called John Petty, and his only surviving sister 
with her two-months-old babe. In a note to Cap- 
tain Cresap several months later he calls the babe 
his cousin, which was the customary title of a 



The Murder of Logan's Family 6i 

sister's child with the Indians. Not one of the 
party escaped except the babe, whose life was 
saved by the mother's plea of kinship. 

From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy, 
Have I not seen what human things can do. 

Lord Byron 

When Logan returned from the hunt and heard 
of the atrocious deed, vengeance seized him. 
Later he said, "Logan thought only of revenge; 
Logan will not weep." And from that moment 
his gospel read, "Vengeance belongeth unto me; 
I will recompense, saith Logan." And action was 
his Bible. 

A short time before that fatal last day of April 
a council of Chiefs had assembled and many of 
them were in favor of war. In reply Logan 
argued, "I admit that you have just cause of com- 
plaint. But you must remember that you, too, 
have sometimes done wrong. By war you can 
only harass and distress the frontier settlements 
for a time and then the Virginians will come like 
the trees in the woods in number and drive you 
from the good lands you possess, from the hunt- 
ing grounds so dear to you." His counsel pre- 
vailed as usual and the Chiefs decided against 
war. Throughout the French and Indian war and 
the conspiracy of Pontiac which followed so 



62 Logan the Mingo 

closely, he remained in his cabin an advocate of 
peace. But wanton killing of fellow human beings 
is a return to savagery whether the color be red 
or white and the treacherous slaughter of his 
family without cause or provocation so far as he 
could see or was personally concerned was too 
much for his hot blood and natural instincts to 
bear. He would not have been an Indian if he 
had submitted without doing more than to make 
complaint to the government which he had served 
so long and well; nor would he have been human, 
the great human that he was, if he had not re- 
sented the atrocity with feelings of vengeance and 
with the most effective weapons of punishment he 
could use. At the time Heckewelder last visited 
him he complained "against the English for im- 
posing liquor upon the Indians; but otherwise 
admired their ingenuity; spoke of gentlemen, but 
observed the Indian unfortunately had but few of 
them as their neighbors." From the friend of the 
white man and advocate of peace he had always 
been he was changed Into a fearless, fiendish foe. 
Instead of remaining in his cabin he went to war, 
not at the head of a great army of braves, but 
almost alone and on his own account; instead of 
making treaties he made history, on every page a 
tragedy written in blood. 



CHAPTER IX 

VALUES PLACED ON HUMAN LIFE 

It may soften the deep crimson color scheme 
of the picture to recall some facts of history that 
are not quite complimentary. The British Par- 
liament passed an Act in 1774 which made the 
Ohio River the southern and the Mississippi River 
the western boundary of Canada without purchase 
or payment. This territory was attached to Que- 
bec by the Act and placed in charge of the 
Virginians, whose Governor was Lord Dunmore. 
England had at the time one hundred and fifty 
capital offenses in her penal code, from stealing 
a shilling, which at par equals about twenty-four 
cents of our money, up or down as you choose to 
call it, to the most heinous crimes, all punishable 
by death. The "Ocean Hells" method, as they 
were called, of punishment so fully portrayed in 
Russel's "The Prison Ship" was about to be^ 
adopted; it consisted of confining the hapless vic- 
tims In stocks on board vessels specially con- 
structed and sent out to sea, where many were 

63 



64 Logan the Mingo 

starved or literally flayed alive before they 
reached their destination. In 1722 Massachusetts 
increased the bounty paid for Indian scalps from 
twelve pounds sterling each to one hundred 
pounds. Pennsylvania had similar laws with a 
graded system of bounties for scalps which ranged 
from one hundred fifty Spanish silver dollars for 
males above ten years of age and women slightly 
less down to children of either sex at fifty and 
thirty pounds each. As recent as February 19, 
178 1, quoting from the Colonial Records of 
Pennsylvania, "An order was drawn in favor of 
Colonel Archibald Lochry, Lieutenant of the 
County of Westmoreland, for the sum of 12 lbs, 
los state money, equal to 2,500 dollars. Conti- 
nental money, to be paid by him to Captain 
Samuel Brady, as a reward for an Indian scalp, 
agreeable to a late proclamation of this board." 
The order was signed by his Excellency Joseph 
Reed, President of the Executive Council. And 
the Colonial Legislature had passed an "Act for 
giving rewards for scalps" in 1745. 

In 1777, only three years before the death of 
Logan, the British Commander, Henry Hamilton, 
at Detroit, made very tempting offers to the 
Indians of rewards for the delivery to him of 
American scalps and prisoners, who like the In- 
dians were fighting for their rights and freedom. 



Values Placed on Human Life 65 

He told them he preferred prisoners which he 
called "live meat" to scalps and offered One Hun- 
dred Dollars apiece for either. 

The Indian's code was scalp for scalp and a 
prisoner additional to replace every one, old or 
young, lost by death or capture and for other 
offenses tortures of the most savage and hideous 
kind or death at the stake by burning. It is well, 
too, to remember that it was but a short span of 
less than two generations that separated Logan's 
career from the days when witch torture and burn- 
ing and other ghoulish atrocities were inflicted 
upon innocent and harmless whites in the colonies 
by people of their own color and blood on the 
silly, savage, superstitious plea that the victims 
did not believe what the persecutors professed to 
believe. Beastly ferocity was not a monopoly 
with the natives nor was it practiced by them 
alone during any period since the advent of the 
white man, whatever the country across the sea 
he came from. Neither was barbaric torture and 
butchery a monopoly of one race at any period 
of Logan's life. The lower in civilization an in- 
dividual or nation is and the lower her feeling for 
human fellow beings descends, whatever the color, 
the more bitter and brutal the hatred. 

Half a dozen years before, while Logan still 
lived at Reedsville, he was cheated by a tailor 



66 Logan the Mingo 

who traded him bad wheat for good dressed deer- 
skins. He made complaint and when Judge 
Brown decided in his favor he replied, "Law 
good, makes rogues pay." But when the law 
failed to protect his family the savage nature 
within was aroused and the old, old law of primi- 
tive man, "Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for 
tooth, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound 
for wound, strife for strife," was the only law and 
way to redress the wrongs he had suffered that 
he knew or could invoke. He had not taken the 
scalp or the life of a white man before the time 
of the Yellow Creek tragedy when the unconquer- 
able impulse to take life for life seized him. His 
course reminds one of Prince Roland. Besides 
this he had been taunted often by his fellow war- 
riors and Chiefs for being a friend of the white 
man and had borne it bravely. It is grossly unjust 
and would falsify human nature to suppose that 
Logan and the Red Men had no feelings of human 
kindness in their bosoms; and it would falsify his- 
tory to say they had no inhuman wrongs to incite 
them to malicious revenge and that their savagery 
was cold-blooded murder in which they took 
fiendish delight. They were by nature lovers of 
peace. 



CHAPTER X 

PERSONAL TRAITS 

Logan was now in the prime of life, a fine 
specimen of robust manhood with a commanding 
presence, dignified in bearing and brave as the 
bravest of the brave. He was built In the style 
of the primeval forest, six feet two or more, broad 
shouldered, lithe of limb and alert and as soft 
of tread as a tiger; he was self-rehant and straight 
as an arrow. He Is described as handsome, with 
more than usual raven-trailing locks and as hav- 
ing jet-black eyes vigilant as the eyes of an eagle, 
firm-set mouth and the kindly features of a child. 
When he began the drink habit is not known. He 
spoke eloquently and often against the bringing 
and selling of rum to his people by the traders, 
but confessed frankly to Heckewelder his own 
fondness for it. His outburst of savagery and 
thirst for revenge were not because he was an 
Indian, but because he was human. Not a drop of 
his blood was now running in the veins of any 
human being, he said. But this was an extrava- 

67 



68 Logan the Mingo 

gance of speech that was very common among the 
Indians and harmless, for they delighted in ex- 
pletives and ornament of their speech as well as 
of their faces and bodies. His oldest brother, 
the father of Tod-kah-dohs, who six years later 
took Logan's life, was still living and made his 
home near Tyrone, Pennsylvania. He, too, re- 
mained a firm friend of the white man, true to the 
admonition of their father. During the Revolu- 
tionary War he helped the colonist cause as a 
scout and spy so loyally that his services were 
called to the attention of General Washington, 
from whom he received formal mention for the 
aid he gave to the patriot cause. He lived to a 
great age and died on the Cornplanter Reserva- 
tion more than a quarter of a century after the 
death of Logan. His youngest brother had died 
at Shamokin before the father; one sister died 
near Lancaster the year after he moved north 
from Shamokin and seven years later another 
sister was killed by the Paxton raiders on the Sus- 
quehanna in seventeen hundred sixty-three. 



CHAPTER XI 

LOGAN TAKES REVENGE 

When the refugees who fled from Yellow 
Creek arrived at the Muskingum villages two 
days after the event with the report of the mur- 
der, the Mingoes, Delawares and Shawneese were 
thrown into excitement but remained quiet to the 
extent that they did not raise the hatchet at once. 
Logan himself made a vow of vengeance on the 
Long Knife as the Virginians were called and on 
traders and settlers alike and said he would take 
ten scalps for each one of his murdered kin. 
Some of his camp fled down the Ohio in canoes 
to their death. But his choice of travel was by 
the land trails in preference to the exposure that 
an open canoe offered on lake or river, though it 
was not always the easier or quicker way. He 
did not rally an army of warriors and lead them 
against the foes, but set out on his own account 
on foot by the most direct route to cut off the 
traders at Canoe Bottom on the Hockhocking. 
His course led westward through dense forests 

69 



70 Logan the Mingo 

and country already familiar to him along the 
highlands and bottom trails of the Conotten and 
Tuscarawas valleys, by Gnadenhiitten and the 
flint quarries overlooking the lower Walhonding, 
down the Muskingum and across to his destina- 
tion. Chief Kiasutha reported to Fort Pitt on the 
ninth of May that the Indians down the Ohio had 
remained quiet and submitted the loss to the can- 
dor and justice of the wise men of the whites. 
Chief White Eyes reported to Captain Smith of 
Fort Pitt that Logan aimed to cut off the traders, 
but the Shavvneese took care of them, and he was 
foiled in his first war of vengeance. Logan 
stopped among his friends at Wakatomica, 
''Vomit Town," now Dresden, on the west bank 
of the Muskingum, fourteen miles below Coshoc- 
ton. 

On the nineteenth of May, with a party of eight 
chosen warriors who were afterwards joined by 
four more, he set out a second time and went to 
the Monongahela River country, which was 
claimed by Virginia in the neighborhood of Ten 
Mile, Dunkard and Muddy creeks. After wait- 
ing and watching for two weeks his chance came, 
on the sixth of June. A settler by the name of 
Spicer, together with his wife and six children, 
were killed and a boy nine years old named Wil- 
liam and a girl aged eleven called Betsy were 



Logan Takes Revenge 71 

taken prisoners. The girl was released, but the 
boy was kept and grew up among the captors. 
Two days later two men were killed in sight of a 
fort on Dunbar Creek. By the twenty-second of 
June, less than a month's time, he returned to 
Wakatomica with sixteen scalps and two prison- 
ers. He at once made himself as renowned in 
war, as he called it, as he had been in peace and 
his name struck terror whenever mentioned. 

His rage had cooled some by this time, but the 
anger of the tribes, especially the Shawneese, was 
increasing. After several days' respite he started 
on the war-path the third time with a party of 
seven braves back to the Monongahela region 
near where he thought the murderers of his 
family lurked. On July twelfth Maj. William 
Robinson with two other men were in a field oppo- 
site the mouth of Simpson Creek pulling flax and 
were fired on by Logan and his party. One of 
the men by the name of Brown was killed and 
the other two started to run away. Logan called 
to them In English, "Stop, I won't hurt you." 
*'Yes, you will," replied Robinson, and kept on 
running. "No, I won't," said Logan, "but if you 
don't stop, by . . . LU shoot you." Excited by 
fear, Robinson kept on going, but stumbled over 
a log and fell and was captured. It is not known 
with certainty what became of the other com- 



72 Logan the Mingo 

panlon. Logan made himself known to Robin- 
son, showed friendliness towards him and told 
him to be of good heart and go with them to their 
camp. On the way to camp he told Robinson that 
he would have to run the gauntlet; but he gave 
him such complete Instruction and directions as 
they traveled together that Robinson ran the 
gauntlet safely and reached the stake without 
harm. 

When a prisoner was brought in he became the 
property of the whole tribe or nation and the 
Chiefs decided what was to be done with him. 
They decided that his punishment should be tor- 
ture and death. The former consisted usually of 
flaying while bound, gashing with knives and prod- 
ding or searing with fire brands. He was tied to 
the stake at the appointed time to be tortured 
in the usual way and burnt when Logan addressed 
the council of assembled warriors with such 
energy, Robinson said afterwards, that the saliva 
foamed at his mouth. Hostile Chiefs spoke in 
opposition, to which Logan replied and untied the 
prisoner. He was fastened to the stake a second 
time and after a parley was released by Logan. 
For the third time the blood-thirsty council of 
Chiefs prevailed and he was again bound to the 
stake with his life in the balance to be weighed 
by his captor's mercy and honor. But Logan's 



Logan Takes Revenge 73 

fervent pleading and impassioned eloquence pre- 
vailed in the end. He loosed the cords which 
bound the prisoner to the stake, placed a belt of 
wampum around him as a mark of adoption and 
introduced a young warrior to him saying, "This 
is your cousin; you are to go home with him and 
he will take care of you." He kept faith and his 
promise to the last syllable with the otherwise 
helpless man. Like Massasoit, he regarded his 
word a pledge which was sacred and could not be 
violated. 

Three days after Robinson had been adopted, 
Logan came to him with a piece of paper and 
asked him to write a note for him. Robinson 
complied with the request and wrote the note with 
suggestive ink made of gun-powder mixed with 
water. Logan dictated the note and after re- 
writing it several times it read as follows: 

To Captain Cresap: 

What did you kill my people on Yellow Creek 
for? The White People killed my kin at Cone- 
stoga a great while ago and I thought nothing of 
that ; but you killed my Kin again on Yellow Creek 
and took my cousin prisoner. Then I thought I 
must kill too; and I have been three times to War 
since ; but the Indians are not angry, only myself. 
Captain John Logan. 

July 21 day, 1774. 



74 Logan the Mingo 

Logan had been wrongly informed or surmised 
falsely and in either case probably never fully 
believed otherwise than that Cresap killed his kin. 
But it was later proved beyond cavil that Cresap 
was at Wheeling on the day of the Yellow Creek 
murder; that Cresap did kill two from Logan's 
camp the next day as they were making their 
escape down the Ohio River in a canoe opposite 
Wheeling; also that Daniel Greathouse and party 
were the real perpetrators of the crime and that 
one of the party named Sappington killed Logan's 
brother, John Petty. Captain Cresap was head 
officer of the band of Virginians that was oper- 
ating along the Ohio border with headquarters at 
Wheeling. A detachment of about thirty led by 
Greathouse as their commander had gone up the 
river and were on the south side opposite Yellow 
Creek at the time. Captain Cresap could not 
therefore be held responsible for the deed, or if 
he could be regarded in any degree responsible 
it could be only indirectly so, as such detached 
units were practically independent of the chief 
officer. 

The Goddess of Vengeance flew on swift wings. 
With the note to Cresap in his belt, "savage cir- 
cumstantial and circumstantial savage," as one 
writer puts it, he went on the warpath again. 
This time with a party of a few chosen braves he 



Logan Takes Revenge 75 

set out on a longer journey to the Holston and 
Clinch Rivers in the southwest corner of Virginia, 
where it is said Captain Cresap made his home. 
It was the long knife that had killed his family 
and on them he turned loose his bitter hatred 
and savage fury. The scalping party reached the 
Holston River by the middle of September and 
proceeded to further glut his thirst for revenge. 
The note to Cresap was found tied to a club in 
the house of John Roberts on Reedy Creek, a 
branch of the Holston. With it on the floor were 
found the bodies of the whole Roberts family, 
who had been killed, except one young boy who 
was carried off captive. Every circumstance in 
the case pointed to Logan and his party as the 
perpetrators of the ghastly deed. By the middle 
of October the party had re-crossed the Ohio and 
he brought back with him five scalps and Roberts* 
little boy with two other prisoners. 

During their absence the Delawares had been 
driven from the Muskingum westward by a com- 
pany of Virginians and were now located among 
the Shawneese at old Chillicothe on the Scioto 
River. The party went to their Delaware friends 
at the new location by the Scioto. He had now 
taken thirty scalps and prisoners as he had vowed 
he would do five and a half months before. His 
thirst for revenge was satisfied. Besides, the 



76 Logan the Mingo 

tribes had united under the leadership of the 
Shawneese with the noted Shawneese Chief Corn- 
stalk as Captain in a desperate effort to destroy 
the Long Knives and had just returned from a 
decisive defeat at Point Pleasant. The spasm of 
ferocious rage and murderous anger that had 
changed him into a savage demon now left him 
as suddenly as it had seized him. 

At the treaty made with Boquet ten years be- 
fore, Pennsylvania promised to pay for lands they 
would purchase or otherwise wrest from the 
Indians; but Virginia neither heeded nor re- 
spected the treaty north of the Ohio. A land 
company known as the Ohio Company, with the 
approval of the Governor of Virginia and sup- 
ported, as you will see, by the militia, continued 
to locate lands as it was called, which in practice 
resembled the gentlemen's agreement we hear 
about in these days, only it was more open and 
boldly defiant of law, justice and equity and meant 
the appropriation or taking of the most fertile 
and desirable lands from the Indians by persua- 
sion, force, murder and even war when other 
schemes failed. 

Logan felt and suffered for his race. They 
were treacherous and savage; but It is equally 
true that they had been brutally treated and 
partly made what they were by the avaricious 



Logan Takes Revenge 77 

pale-face. The whites were obsessed with greed 
and the idea that might makes right, and a heart- 
less disregard of human life and suffering pre- 
vailed. Faithful missionaries condoled and con- 
soled them, traders and the officers of the 
government were even buying their submission to 
the loss of their hunting grounds and the outrages 
inflicted upon them with costly presents and bar- 
rels of rum. Still the relations between them had 
become more strained from day to day for the 
past five months and the situation and hatred 
more intense. The Yellow Creek affair was not 
forgotten on the one side and the greedy rush to 
grab off the best and choicest possessions con- 
tinued on the other. Foreigners were no longer 
safe in their villages or secure while traveling 
through their country, theirs, Logan insisted, by 
birthright and by right of discovery, by proclama- 
tion of the Great Father, king of England in the 
Quebec Act, and by treaty agreements as well. 



CHAPTER XII 

DUNMORE'S WAR 

The Ohio country was a seething pot of unrest 
and the lives of both whites and Indians were in 
jeopardy day and night. War was the answer by 
Virginia. The conflict is known in the history 
of the period as "Dunmore's War," but in the 
earlier records it was sometimes called Logan's 
War. The murder of his family and the toll in 
human life he took in revenge brought it on 
sooner than it would have otherwise come. 
Whether the encounter would have lasted for 
months or longer instead of a single day if Logan 
and Chief Cornstalk had not taken a firm stand 
against war and advised peace Instead, can only 
be guessed. To cope with the situation Governor 
Dunmore raised an army of about three thousand 
troops and volunteers to check the uprising or 
drive the Indians out of that section if necessary. 
General Andrew Lewis was put In command of 
one division of eleven hundred Virginians which 
marched down the Kanawa River to Point Pleas- 



Dunmore's War 79 

ant and encamped in the triangle formed by its 
junction with the Ohio. Here they were surprised 
and savagely attacked in the early morning of the 
tenth of October by an equal number of Indians 
led by Chief Cornstalk. After a full day of 
fierce fighting to and fro and the loss of Col. 
Charles Lewis, brother of the commander, Cols. 
Fleming and Field and seventy-five officers and 
men and one hundred forty wounded, the Indians 
under the cover of night took their dead and 
wounded with them, as their custom was, crossed 
back over the Ohio and withdrew to their towns 
on the Scioto. 

Dunmore commanded the second division in 
person by way of Mingo and the Ohio River and 
up the Hockhocking. The two divisions were to 
meet at Camp Charlotte, six miles east of their 
villages, before making the attack. When Dun- 
more arrived at the appointed place two days after 
the Point Pleasant battle he learned that Lewis 
was encamped only two miles below the villages 
and, supported by his angry soldiers, was deter- 
mined to make the attack alone. With difficulty 
and threats of dismissing him from his command 
and sending him home under guard, Dunmore's 
firmness won the day and the attack was not 
made. 

Logan arrived from the Holston raid at the 



8o Logan the Mingo 

critical moment. The defeated and foiled war- 
riors had returned from the battle and the Chiefs 
were assembled in council. From the reports the 
sentinels were bringing in Dunmore and Lewis 
would soon join their forces. Chief Cornstalk 
had advised them not to go to war at a meeting in 
council before he led them into the battle and now 
counseled with them to make peace. Logan 
argued for peace and pled with them not to con- 
tinue the war. The Council wisely decided 
against war and a deputation of Chiefs was sent 
to Dunmore to sue for peace. The Commander 
agreed to a conference and runners were sent out 
to invite all the Chiefs to attend it at Camp Char- 
lotte. 

Logan refused to go. But the occasion and the 
moment had come for the supreme climax in his 
famous career. On the Pickaway plains, six miles 
south of Circleville and two and a half miles east 
of the Scioto River, on the bank of Congo Creek 
stood an elm tree and in its hoary magnificence it 
is still standing with a diameter of seven feet, a 
height of seventy-nine feet and a spread of its 
branches of one hundred and fifty feet — a 
primeval giant full of years and fame. It was 
intended, no doubt, to be a wise stroke of 
diplomacy that led Dunmore to select Col. John 
Gibson to go as a special messenger to invite and 



Dunmore's War 8 1 

bring Logan to the appointed conference; for 
Gibson was the alleged father of the two-months- 
old child of Logan's sister, whose life was spared 
at Yellow Creek. 



CHAPTER XIII 

LOGAN'S FAMOUS SPEECH 

Logan refused to go with Gibson to the Con- 
ference; but he proposed that they, he and Gibson, 
take a walk to the woods and talk the matter over. 
At length they sat down on a log under the elm 
tree, whose fame is still growing and which is 
known the world over to-day as Logan's Elm. 
It was here that he made that famous speech with 
Gibson as his only known listener and audience — 
one of the finest specimens of heart-throbbing elo- 
quence in the English language if not in any lan- 
guage. Thus it happened that a log in the 
primeval forest on the Pickaway plains became 
the throne of justice from which Logan passed 
sentence on his accusers and on the common enemy 
who had inflicted on his people about every form 
of punishment and evil known in the category of 
pain and crime. 

Gibson took down the speech as nearly word 
for word as was possible and read it to the Con- 
ference the next day at Camp Chillicothe. 

82 



Logan* s Famous Speech 83 

Thomas Jefferson says in his Notes on Virginia 
that Gibson attested its genuineness by a sworn 
affidavit that It is substantially the same as related 
in the Notes, as follows : 

I appeal to any white man to say if ever he 
entered Logan's cabin hungry and I gave him not 
meat; if ever he came cold or naked and I gave 
him not clothing. 

During the course of the last long and bloody 
war Logan remained In his tent an advocate for 
peace. Nay, such was my love for the whites, 
that those of my own country pointed at me as 
they passed by and said, "Logan is the friend of 
white men." I had even thought to live with, 
you but for the Injuries of one man. Colonel 
Cresap the last spring, in cold blood, and unpro- 
voked, cut off all the relatives of Logan; not 
sparing even my women and children. There 
runs not a drop of my blood In the veins of any 
human creature. This called on me for revenge. 
I have sought it. I have killed many. I have 
fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I 
rejoice at the beams of peace. Yet, do not harbor 
the thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan 
never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to 
save his life. Who Is there to mourn for Logan? 
Not one. 

The following wording of the speech became 
popular, but the variation Is In the choice of words 
and the flow of the sentences. The difference is 



84 Logan the Mingo 

so slight, just enough to amount to a proof of the 
genuineness of the above: 

I appeal to any white man to say that he ever 
entered Logan's cabin, but I gave him meat; that 
he ever came naked, but I clothed him. 

In the course of the last war, Logan remained 
in his cabin an advocate of peace. I had such 
affection for the white people that I was pointed 
at by the rest of my nation. I should have ever 
lived with them had it not been for Colonel 
Cresap who last year cut off, in cold blood, all 
the relations of Logan, not sparing my women 
and children. There runs not a drop of my blood 
in the veins of any human creature. This called 
upon me for revenge. I have sought it. I have 
killed many, and fully glutted my revenge. I am 
glad there is a prospect of peace on account of the 
nation; but I beg you will not entertain a thought 
that anything I have said proceeds from fear. 
Logan disdains the thought. He will not turn 
on his heel to save his life. Who is there to 
mourn for Logan? No one. 

This simple, dispassionate utterance and cry in 
words blood-winged and eloquent gushed up from 
the heart of his race and made the name of Logan 
immortal. It is the key to his real greatness of 
soul. If this speech, at once bold, lofty and sub- 
lime, had not been faithfully recorded and pre- 
served his oblivion might have been as complete 
and as much to be regretted as the silence under 



LogavLS Famous Speech 85 

which the names of many able Chiefs and Wise 
Men have been smothered and lost to history. 
Jefferson justly challenges Cicero, Demosthenes, 
European and American statesmen to surpass it. 
The appeal is based on facts and on the lofty 
sentiments of a common humanity. Its tribute 
to justice and the brotherhood of man is real and 
ferv^ent. Like Patrick Henry before the Virginia 
Convention and Lincoln's immortal speech at 
Gettysburg, there is an undertone of hope in it 
and a permeating note of sadness. It was recited 
in the schools throughout the colonies and new 
nation and became a model of eloquence for 
American schoolboys. It was copied in England 
and translated into French and German and other 
European literatures as a specimen of classic 
oratory as lasting as literature and as imperish- 
able as the name Indian; and the hearts of two 
continents vibrated in rhythmic cadence and sym- 
pathy to the beat of Logan's throbbing pulse. 

The Point Pleasant battle had decided the con- 
flict and peace was declared at the Conference at 
Camp Charlotte. The provisions of the treaty 
stated that the Indians were to return all white 
prisoners, horses and property In their possession; 
that they agree never to make war again upon the 
Virginia border and not to cross the Ohio River 
into Virginia for any purpose except to trade. 



86 Logan the Mingo 

These pledges were to be secured by hostages who 
were to be taken to Pittsburgh and held there 
until the Virginians were satisfied that the prom- 
ises would be fulfilled. As usual, neither party- 
kept either the letter or the spirit of the agree- 
ment. The Mingoes held aloof because they did 
not believe that a prospect of peace was yet in 
sight. But the treaty was signed and was a fitting 
cHmax to Logan's life and to what proved to be 
the last great clash in the Ohio country between 
the Indians and the English, unless one chooses to 
call Tecumseh's Confederacy of the eighteen- 
twelve period an Indian war. But strictly speak- 
ing, that war was as much British as it was Indian. 
The Chiefs returned from the Conference to their 
towns and on the last day of October Dunmore 
started back with his army to Williamsburg, the 
capital of the Virginia colony; they carried with 
them Logan's speech, which became the topic of 
talk on everybody's tongue. In their eyes he was 
the hero of the day. Schoolcraft says: "The im- 
pression was widespread and effect electric. A 
heart capable of expressing such sentiments was 
worthy to beat in the noblest bosom of the human 
race." 



CHAPTER XIV 

YEARS OF UNCERTAINTY 

There were many depredations and crimes 
committed on each side, red and white, within 
the compass of the thirty-odd years of Logan's 
active period and great conferences held that can- 
not be told or described here — clashes that were 
prodigal of human life and property and accom- 
panied by daring exploits, suffering and torture. 
Events that are not in some vital way connected 
with his personal conduct, public or private, and 
such incidents as did not influence the course he 
was following in his attitude towards his fellow- 
men and the government have been purposely 
omitted for what seems a good and sufficient rea- 
son. They would carry the simple story of his 
life too far out into the history of the stirring 
times in which he lived and into regions too re- 
mote from the scenes of his activities. Some of 
the events and exploits are highly important In 
themselves and In relation to the larger scope of 
history and thrill with Interest and excitement; 

87 



88 Logan the Mingo 

for Logan lived in the fresh growing morning of 
American history. If he had been able to write 
the English language as well and plainly as he 
spoke it and even no better, and had left notes or 
a diary of his travels, transactions and quiet vic- 
tories, the story of his life would, no doubt, be 
longer and the role he played could be more 
graphically told. 

Doubtless there are humorous episodes that 
provoked merriment and laughable situations to 
free himself from, for he did not want in the 
faculty that perceives the ludicrous. But they 
were not preserved with enough completeness or 
reliability of the traditions to warrant repetition. 
He took life in earnest and its experiences were 
too serious and real for jest or ridicule. 

In four and a half years he moved half as many 
hundred miles westward as the airplane flies and 
had not found a spot that promised to be secure 
or permanent as a home. The defeat and total 
collapse of Pontiac's Conspiracy five years before 
he arrived on the Allegheny left turmoil and 
ruined villages in the wake. The survivors of the 
lost cause In western Pennsylvania and the adjoin- 
ing region in Ohio withdrew to the middle and 
western parts of what is now the Buckeye State, 
where they set to work to recruit their depleted 
ranks and rally their spirits. Here lived a motley 



Years of Uncertainty 89 

population side by side, Mingoes, Miamis, Dela- 
wares, Shawneese, Ottawas, Twigtwees, Wyan- 
dots, and remnants and refugees of other tribes. 
These were favorite hunting grounds teeming 
with fish and game and had been the dweUing 
place of successive nations and tribes for cen- 
turies, as is proved by the numerous village sites, 
mounds, effigies, forts and ruins which still dot 
the valleys and hilltops. 

But now this favorite refuge and land of plenty 
was thrown into alarm and uncertainty by the 
defeat of Cornstalk and his chosen army and the 
treaty they were forced to accept. It was among 
this medley of tribes and remnants that Logan 
was to live and once more try to set up his ideal 
democracy that would include both races where 
they might live together in peace and safety — a 
truly American ideal. He saw the Constitution 
framed which guarantees the rights and liberties 
of his dream, but did not live long enough to see 
it adopted and put to work in shaping the republic 
of which he was a part by sentiment and lifelong 
service. 

The frontier line at this time ran from Lake 
Erie on the north down across eastern Ohio, Vir- 
ginia, Kentucky to Tennessee and was firmly and 
surely pushing toward the setting sun with slaugh- 
ter and blood in its sweep. On the line were the 



90 Logan the Mingo 

brave pioneers and the daring ranger, scout and 
Indian fighter all in one, Samuel Brady in western 
Pennsylvania, Simon Kenton in Ohio and Daniel 
Boone in Kentucky and Tennessee was waiting 
for David Crockett to be born. The daring deeds 
and noble achievements of these heroic men have 
been already written and preserved; comrades in 
purpose and bravery and each defending a section 
of the long stretch of frontier. But the name of 
Kenton is the only one of the group that is 
directly associated with Logan; and his rescue 
from a mob of blood-thirsty Chiefs by the peace- 
maker Sachem was as brave and timely as it was 
humane and daring. 

Logan faced the facts squarely. But it would 
not give due credit to his intelligence and usual 
good judgment to say he did not begin to see and 
realize that the vision of peace he had and 
thought fair and proper was not hkely to come 
true, at least not soon. With the aid and coopera- 
tion of powerful Chiefs he had on different 
occasions failed to keep his own wild, treacher- 
ously savage people from making war, breaking 
treaties and committing frequent outrages, and 
he had not restrained himself from rash slaughter 
of unprotected whites. Sincere and complete 
surrender of all the tribes to some one or to any 



Years of Uncertainty 91 

responsible authority was as chimerical as It was 
impossible. They were not fit for such organiza- 
tion or able to live in it, and peace was not pos- 
sible on any other terms; and his dream did not 
provide for complete and unconditional submis- 
sion. 

His cabin at Old Chilllcothe, now Westfall, on 
the banks of the peaceful Scioto, looked towards 
the rising sun, the beautiful and fertile Pickaway 
plains and the yet-to-be-memorable Elm tree. But 
he did not tarry there long. They were dislodged 
from the Muskingum valley and the treaty just 
made with Dunmore was about to push them out 
of the lower Scioto towards the northwest. He 
moved to Pluggy's town, a village named after 
Pluggy, a Chief of the Mohawks, eighteen miles 
north of the present site of Columbus. It was on 
a summer day, the twenty-fifth of July of the fol- 
lowing year, that Captain Wood and an interpre- 
ter were on their way to invite the tribes to a con- 
ference at Pittsburgh and came upon Logan and 
several other Indians who were under the influ- 
ence of liquor. Wood and his companion were 
at the mercy of the savages, who were flushed 
with rum and hatred. Logan Interceded In their 
behalf with the assuring words, "You shall not be 
hurt," and they were not molested. 



92 Logan the Mingo 

The tribes and remnants had been reduced In 
numbers and were restless. They had been 
smothering and covering up their hatred as only 
Indians know how to do, but it was not abated. 
The English were equally uneasy, for the beacon- 
light had swung from the Old North Church 
tower and blood had flowed on Lexington Com- 
mon. The year the war of the American Revolu- 
tion began Logan apologized for the conduct of 
his people, but remained neutral and pleaded for 
peace. He said, "We hear bad news. Some of 
us are constantly threatened. We are informed 
that a great reward is offered to any person who 
will take or entice either of us to Pittsburgh, 
where we are to be hung up like dogs by the Long 
Knife. This being true, how can we think of 
what is good? That it is true, we have no doubt." 

He attended a meeting of the tribes twelve 
months later and again counseled for peace as 
usual and went farther up the Scioto into the 
Wyandot country. The "Aged Indian" of Mrs. 
Hemans was probably Logan. If he alone was 
not the hero of this touching, sad song, the fol- 
lowing lines give a true and real picture of his 
care-worn and grief-broken spirit: — 

Warriors ! my noon of life is past. 
The brightness of my spirit flown; 
I crouch before the wintry blast; 



Years of Uncertainty 93 

Amidst my tribe I dwell alone; 
The heroes of my youth are fled, 
They rest among the warrior dead. 

They were yielding to the inexorable. Their 
fate had been foreshadowed and their destiny 
determined and written when the Caucasian first 
arrived on the fair and inviting shores of the 
western world. Such has been the fate of other 
primitive races through the course of human his- 
tory. If their traditions contained stories of 
other aboriginal peoples who successfully opposed 
and scorned the advance of civilization or of new 
ideals of life they did not recite them to strangers 
who came to hve among them or to conquer them, 
and did not heed the warning and handwriting on 
the wall. The law of the survival of the fittest is 
written in blood. Yet it is remarkable that the 
ideal of a democracy should emanate from the 
brain of an Indian and that its fundamental idea, 
— "that all men are created equal and endowed by 
their Creator with certain unalienable rights; 
that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness," — ^became the basic principle of the 
Declaration of American Independence. 

Bereft of kin, Logan wandered among the 
tribes a broken man. According to the tradition 
already alluded to, in July of seventeen hundred 
seventy-eight the aged Outalissi, "desolate and 



94 Lo^an the Mingo 

famished poor," stole back to Wyoming on the 
Susquehanna to clasp in a last embrace the boy, 
"It is my own," now grown to brawny manhood, 
whom he saved from an uncertain and perhaps 
barbaric fate fifteen years before. It was on the 
eve of the Wyoming Massacre of July third, 
seventeen hundred seventy-eight, when he arrived, 
just in time to sound the alarm of the impending 
doom: 

The Mammoth comes — the foe — the monster 

Brandt 
With all his howling desolating band. 

Gainst Brandt himself I went to battle forth: 
Accursed Brandt, he left of all my tribe 
Nor man, nor child, nor thing of living birth: 
No, not the dog that watched my household 

hearth. 
Escaped that night of blood upon our plains; 
All perished — I alone am left on earth 
To whom nor relative nor blood remains. 
No — not a kindred drop that runs in human veins. 

Logan made his famous speech four years be- 
fore the massacre at Wyoming. Campbell's 
poems were published in 1809, after the speech 
had become known in England and the truthful- 
ness of the tradition of this visit is not only pos- 



Years of Uncertainty 95 

sible but very highly probable. It was the custom 
grown sacred through centuries of usage to visit 
the burial places of their kin at certain seasons 
and If far away at longer Intervals. Moreover, 
the poet was a contemporary of Thomas Jeffer- 
son, who said confidently that Logan was the hero 
of the romance. Both the thought and the lan- 
guage put Into the mouth of Outallssi on the 
occasion betray the source of the poet's inspira- 
tion. 

In the autumn of this year of seventy-eight, 
Simon Kenton, the brave scout and companion of 
Daniel Boone, wa's caught stealing horses, if one 
could call it stealing, as he was taking from hos- 
tile Indians only such horses as they had stolen 
from the frontiersmen. He was condemned for 
the deed by a council of Chiefs, forced to run the 
gauntlet and was tied to the stake. The infamous 
renegade Simon GIrty released him. He was tried 
again and condemned, but this time he was de- 
serted by the turncoat GIrty and left to his fate. 
The prisoner was then lodged with Logan for 
safe keeping until he would be led away to tor- 
ture. "These chaps seem very angry with you," 
said Logan, "but be strong. I am a great Chief. 
They talk of taking you to Sandusky and burning 
you there. I will send messengers to speak good 



g6 Logan the Mingo 

for you.'' He sent two messengers to Sandusky 
and held the angry Indians in check while the 
runners made the journey, and with great difficulty 
got Kenton released. He was taken to Detroit 
and held a prisoner till he managed to escape in 
June of the next year and return to his home, 
which was then in Kentucky. 

The following year he adopted a white woman 
into his family as his sister, Heckewelder says, to 
take the place of the sister who was killed at 
Yellow Creek five years before. During the re- 
maining year of his life he made his home with 
the remnant of the band of Mingoes at Seneca on 
the Sandusky River. He continued to be friendly 
towards the English, notwithstanding his roving 
from place to place and indulging too freely in 
strong drink. In his disappointment and distress 
he turned to rum for comfort as many vigorous 
men have done since his day. The uncertainty 
and unrest that belong to a period of bitter 
hatred, strife and warfare did not change his pur- 
pose of maintaining a strict neutrality towards 
the tribes nor modify the inborn principle and 
standard of right and his love of peace and justice 
for all, friend and foe. The loss of his kin he 
had treated as a personal or individual grievance 
and with a few chosen companions, a mere hand- 
ful, he had taken personal revenge. He was not 



Years of Uncertainty 97 

a Chief who delighted to lead hosts forth in 
battle, but a wise Sachem who strove to guide and 
govern his people and who toiled unceasingly to 
lead and protect them. 



CHAPTER XV 

FAVORS THE BRITISH CAUSE— 
A CONFESSION 

England had now been at war with the 
American colonies for four years. Whether it 
was on account of his former allegiance to the 
Great Father and his appointment to office as his 
father's successor at Shamokin, or because the 
hated Virginians stood in his mind and by his way 
of reckoning for all Americans, cannot be decided 
after so long a lapse of time with no record to 
show his feelings in the matter. But Logan came 
under the influence of the Shawneese, who were 
avowed and resolute enemies of the Virginians, 
and allied himself actively on the side of the 
British the last year of his life. However true 
It may be, it is said he led a scouting party back 
to the Holston River, the alleged home of his 
accused and hated personal enemy, in seventy-nine 
and brought out a number of prisoners. 

The next year at the age of fifty-five he joined 
a force that was sent from Detroit down into 

98 



Favors the British Cause — a Confession 99 

Kentucky under the command of Captain Henry 
Bird. This little army of raiders was made up 
of Canadian volunteers, some regulars of the 
British army and Indians who sympathized with 
the British cause in the Revolutionary War, which 
was still in progress with the issue undecided and 
the odds in favor of the British. The Settlements 
at Ruddell's and Martin's stations were taken and 
many prisoners were brought back across the 
Ohio river. Logan chatted freely with the unfor- 
tunate captives on the way. Among the prisoners 
was John Dunkin. He and Logan became friends 
on the journey and it was to Dunkin that he re- 
vealed the Inner conflict and contradictory work- 
ings of his troubled conscience, brave heart and 
thoroughly human nature. He said to Dunkin, 
'*I know that I have two souls, the one good, and 
the other bad. When the good has the ascendant 
I am kind and humane. When the bad soul rules 
I am perfectly savage and delight in nothing but 
blood and carnage." 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE END 

After he returned from the Kentucky raid he 
went to a council of Chiefs at Detroit in autumn. 
He became melancholy at times in later years and 
as the end of days drew near sometimes delirious. 
During the progress of the conference Logan in a 
passion, probably crazed by drink, struck his wife 
and felled her by what seemed at first a fatal 
blow. He fled from her relatives and took the 
well-worn trail leading towards his home on the 
Sandusky. He was overtaken by a band of 
Indians with their women and children at a noted 
camping place near Brownsville, one writer says. 
His nephew, Tod-kah-dohs, was one of the party. 
It is almost certain that Logan was mistaken and 
judged wrongly when he suspected them of pur- 
suing him to punish him for striking his wife. He 
shouted defiantly that he would scalp the whole 
party. His nephew knew well his alertness and 
that the only escape was to strike first; and as 
Logan was leaping from his horse Tod-kah-dohs 

100 




.OGAN MONUMENT, AUBURN, NEW YORK 



The End loi 

shot him. The next morning some Wyandots 
went out a distance of two miles and brought in 
the body and buried it. 

According to another account of his death 
which is more frequently repeated, he was killed 
on the way while making the same journey from 
Detroit to the upper Sandusky. He had a quarrel 
with his nephew and while he was sitting by his 
camp fire with his elbows on his knees and his face 
between his hands in deep meditation, Tod-kah- 
dohs stole up behind him and tomahawked him. 
Whichever may have been the exact manner of 
his death, on Tod-kah-dohs rests the charge and 
crime of Logan's death. Both the exact date and 
place are lost to history. And there in the silent 
autumn woods on the shore of Lake Erie the 
darkness closed around him and the primeval 
forests which he loved so well began to sing 
requiems over the lonely spot. 



/ 



CHAPTER XVII 

TRIBUTES— IN SONG AND STORY 

Thus passed Logan. His passions were naked 
and furious when fully aroused, but his sorrow 
was deep and real. His character was unique and 
survived as no mean benefaction to the future to 
become the com^mon possession of mankind. 

A soul that pity touched, but never shook; 
Trained from his tree-rocked cradle to his bier 
The fierce extreme of good and ill to brook 
Impassive — fearing but the shame of fear^ — 
A stoic of the woods — a man without a tear. 
Yet deem not goodness on the savage stock 
Of Outalissi's heart disdained to grow. 

Joseph Dodridge dramatized him in a four-act 
piece which was very popular in the thirties and 
forties, fifty years after his death, and his name 
and fame were echoed in musical comedy and cur- 
rent literature and sung in such tributes as Can- 
ning's "The Shades of Logan." In fiction, as 
Ellis' "Logan, the Mingo," written for children. 



Tributes — in Son^ and Story 103 

where the author gives free rein to the imagina- 
tion, he is eulogized as the man who "Spoke with 
a single tongue," — brave and honest and as fleet 
as a deer. Whether we meet him in history, 
official records, in poetry or fiction or in the plain 
annals and traditions of every-day life he is sin- 
cere and trustworthy and the brave champion of 
personal freedom, right and justice — the Patriot 
and true American. 

I shrink from the task of recording and verify- 
ing the origin of the names of counties, towns and 
villages; of streets and mills; of creeks, fords and 
ports, the hills, rocks and rills that bear the name 
Logan, many of which were named after him and 
in his honor. No other Indian called forth so 
much verse and eulogy and left a name and fame 
impressed on so many nations as Logan. 

In eighteen hundred fifty-two, almost three 
quarters of a century after his death, a rustic 
monument was set up on a mound at the apex of 
Fort Hill cemetery. Auburn, New York, where 
tradition says he was born. On it is inscribed his 
own words, the sad and heart-torn cry, "who is 
THERE TO MOURN FOR LOGAN?" Posterity has 
been tardy in erecting memorials to mark sites 
and scenes associated with his life and places 
made historic by his deeds. But not more so per- 
haps than it has been in commemorating the 



104 Logan the Mingo 

heroism and suffering of other martyrs to the 
cause of freedom of those days who were of our 
own blood and kin. 

On the second of October nineteen hundred 
twelve the Elm tree, known as Logan's Elm, 
hoary with its ten score and more years, together 
with about five acres of ground surrounding it, 
situated six miles south of Circleville and two and 
a half miles east of the Scioto River, became the 
property of the Ohio Archaeological and Histori- 
cal Society to be preserved in perpetuity as a 
public park. A granite monument was erected a 
few rods south of the tree with inscriptions which 
give the history of Maj. John Boggs who built a 
cabin on the spot in seventeen hundred ninety- 
eight; of his son and of his grandson, John Boggs, 
Jr., who erected the monument. On one side is 
the following record: — 

Under the spreading branches of 
a magnificent Elm tree near by is 
where Logan, a Mingo Chief, 
made his celebrated speech, and 
where Lord Dunmore concluded 
his treaty with the Indians in 1774, 
thereby opened this County for the 
settlement of our fathers. 

As to the place where the Dunmore treaty was 
actually signed, official reports and history agree 



Tributes — in Song and Story 105 

that it was done at Camp Charlotte which was a 
few miles east of this spot. 'An epitaph for the 
occasion and worthy of the plain, celebrated 
Mingo reads as follows : — 

Logan, to thy memory here 

White men do this tablet rear; 

On its front we grave thy name 

In our hearts shall live thy fame. 

While Niagara's thunders roar 

Or Erie's surges lash the shore; 

While onward broad Ohio glides 

And seaward roll her Indian tides 

So long their memory, who did give 

These floods their sounding names shall live. 

While time, in kindness, hurries 

The gory axe and warrior's bow. 

O justice, faithful to thy trust. 

Record the virtues of the just. 

In weighing human conduct and estimating 
character, of an individual, of a group of men or 
of a nation, the kind and the magnitude of the 
temptations he meets or has thrust upon him count 
as well as his mental endowment, moral standard 
and social aptitude. And down the long per- 
spective of history comes the impartial verdict 
that to spirits that exulted in the fact that they 
were the first owners of the lands and all the mate- 
rial sources of a satisfied existence which they 
were fighting and dying to protect; to human be- 



io6 Logan the Mingo 

ings that were born free and loved their freedom 
next to Hfe itself; and to a proud race that scorned 
slavery and the thought of submission and extinc- 
tion — the havoc forced upon the Indians was 
galling and cruelly unjust. 

His consistent life and steadfast purpose won 
for Logan the world's admiration and praise in 
spite of the revenge and savagery of one-half year 
and the intemperance of his last years. His char- 
acter embodied the best traditions and highest 
ideals of the proud, care-free and restraint-free 
North American Indian of the early days before 
they deteriorated into a state of relentless sav- 
agery and revenge. He was frankly honest, 
modest, generous and faithful to a trust and was 
''never surpassed by any of his nation for mag- 
nanimity in war and greatness of soul in peace." 
One law of his life was to do as you would be 
done by. His manner was dignified and manly 
and in none of his recorded utterances can the 
language of abuse, railery or contempt be found. 
Neither did he ever wear a petticoat like a squaw, 
the humiliating sign and punishment of cowardice. 
The better qualities of his character and deeds of 
his life challenge the esteem of mankind and stand 
out as the sure marks of a superior nature whose 
sincerity and humanity were shown by the prac- 



Tributes — in Song and Story 107 

tice of virtues which no one need fear or blush 
to imitate. 

His eventful life fell in the border-conflict 
period of Indian and Anglo-Saxon history — bor- 
der in a much deeper and broader meaning than 
geographical boundaries, the edicts of Kings or 
treaty agreements. It was the meeting of two 
states of society and the dividing Hne between two 
races whose stages of social organization were 
separated by a thousand years or more and whose 
modes of living were widely different. 

History has not preserved a better type and 
higher product of the Indian race than Logan. 
But he was also a prophecy of the new civiliza- 
tion that was to follow; he was a natural man, 
democratic and American. Brandt, Red Jacket, 
Pontiac, Cornstalk, Tecumseh and many others 
were famous Chiefs of whose prowess and great- 
ness the Indian could proudly and justly boast. 
But Logan was both revered and feared; first 
feared and then revered; and his name shines 
from the zenith of the history of the North 
American Indian as the friend of the white man 
and the most renowned individual of his once 
numerous race. 

What Lord Dufferin wrote of Christopher 
Columbus, the explorer, as recently as eighteen 



io8 Logan the Mingo 

hundred ninety-two may be also said of Logan 
the Indian, "If fame is an enviable thing, there 
is no man's fame more to be envied than his; for 
never has fame been better deserved, so widely 
acknowledged, or more innocently acquired." 



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF LOGAN 
LITERATURE 

Pennsylvania Provincial Council Minutes. 

Historical Collections of Pennsylvania. 

History of Northumberland County, Pa. 

History of Mifflin County, Pa. 

History of Huntingdon County, Pa. 

History of Western Pennsylvania — A Gentle- 
man of the Bar. 

The Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania. 

Historic Memoirs of New York. 

History of Auburn, New York. 

Hand Book of Fort Hill Cemetery. 

Historical Collections of Ohio — Howe. 

Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society 
Publications. 

Hand Book of American Indians — Bureau of 
Ethnology, D. C. 

Notes on Virginia — Thomas Jefferson. 

The Olden Time, Vol. I and II— Craig. 

Border Fights and Fighters — Cyrus Townsend 
Brady. 

109 



no Logan the Mingo 

History of the Moravian Indians — Loskiel. 

Life of David Zeisberger — Schweinits. 

History of Indians of North America — Hecke- 
welder. 

History of New York Iroquois — Beauchamp. 

Iroquois or Bright Side of Indian Character — 
Minnie Myrtle. 

Post's Journals, I and II — Christian Frederick 
Post. 

Indian Biography — Drake. 

Indian Biography — Thatcher. 

Tah-gah-jute or Logan and Cresap — Brantz 
Mayer. 

Logan, the Last of the Race of Shikellamy — 
Dr. Joseph Dodridge. 

Logan, the Mingo — Ellis. 



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